[CJ OliveNetworks = September 17, 2018 (Monday)] CJ OliveNetworks held the “STEAM Camp” for middle school girl students at IT Creative Training Center located in the Yongsan Electronics Market, on September 15 (Sat).

The event was held in connection to the “Brighter Future for Girls through Education” campaign that the CJ Group has pursued with UNESCO since 2014 to improve the educational environment of girls in developing countries. Given that the female IT workforce in Korea is small, the event was prepared to draw the interest of marginalized female students so that they would later pursue a career in natural sciences and engineering fields. “JA Korea,” an international educational institution NGO for youth, jointly managed the event.

The official name of the camp was “Girls, Crack the Code,” which means that girls personally find solutions to problems and practice what they have learned through software (SW) education.

The camp differentiated itself from existing SW education programs by introducing the “STEAM” method, which is drawing much attention as a future-oriented education for cultivating fusion-type talents. STEAM is the acronym for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. It is a teaching method that develops the students’ ability to creatively think and solve problems related to actual daily life by fusing the concepts and principles of the above five fields.

CJ OliveNetworks reflected the level and interests of middle school girl students and conducted the STEAM education with science and arts merged, such as cooking, gardening, and lamp making using computer science educational tools. About 80 female students who participated in the day’s event learned how to use the various features of Micro:bit, which is an ultrasmall computer, and came to understand the basic algorithm of coding in the process of making sandwiches.

The students enjoyed the opportunity to develop the artistic creativity and integrated thinking ability through various activities such as checking the humidity of flower pots and setting alarms, operating and decorating the lamp lights by entering commands into computers.  

CJ OliveNetworks’ staff members personally participated as lecturers so that the students could enjoy learning easily and focus on the training.

“As it has become a major task to discover competent women in science-based industries including IT, we have come to work together with UNESCO, which is working hard to narrow girls’ educational gap. The CJ SW Creative Camp will continue to reflect the rapidly changing SW education trends in the future, and focus our efforts to providing the opportunity for high-quality education to marginalized children,” a CJ OliveNetworks officer said. (The end)