Source: Nexon

Nexon announced on the 4th that it has officially opened registration for the Nexon Young Programmers Cup (NYPC), a newly revamped programming competition for this year.

Through this major overhaul, the NYPC has been completely reborn as a strategic programming competition that actively utilizes artificial intelligence, moving away from traditional algorithm-based problem solving. The competition name has been changed from the Nexon Youth Programming Challenge to the Nexon Young Programmers Cup, and under the new official slogan 'Break, Solve, Win,' it provides a fierce new stage for participants to test their programming skills.

This renewal goes beyond a simple name change, encompassing broad updates to the operating schedule, participant categories, track structures, and award systems. Starting this year, the competition is divided into two distinct tracks: the 'Rookie Track' for students aged 14 to 18, and the 'Master Track' for university students aged 19 and older.

The problem-solving approach and participation format are clearly differentiated by track. The Rookie Track is an individual competition where participants design their own strategies to achieve the highest scores on heuristic problems that have no single fixed answer.

The Master Track is a team competition where teams design their own AI agents to engage in intense battles, testing their ability to predict opponent strategies and respond rapidly. In line with current trends, the use of generative AI is officially permitted, and the competition fully supports 12 programming languages, including C, C++, Python, and Java.

The competition consists of online preliminary rounds and an offline final. The schedule is concentrated during the summer break to enhance convenience for students. For the Master Track, the preliminary round runs from June 29 to July 8, while the Rookie Track runs from July 10 to July 19. Participants can log in online at any time during the operating period to practice and solve problems. Top performers from each track will advance to the grand offline final on August 29.

Both tracks feature various awards, including Winner, Gold, Silver, and Bronze, with a total prize pool of ₩50 million. The final 'Winner' of each track will be honored with the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award, followed by awards from the Korea Creative Content Agency, the Game Culture Foundation, and the Nexon Foundation. Additionally, Master Track winners will be offered an opportunity for a hands-on internship at Nexon, helping them translate their competition success into real-world career experience.

Notably, this year's competition marks the first time students from Vietnam will officially participate in the Master Track. Nexon is actively promoting the event at major universities in Vietnam and plans to invite top-performing local teams from the online preliminaries to Korea to compete in the finals on equal footing with domestic participants. Through this bold initiative, Nexon aims to verify the potential for expanding the unique NYPC operating model to a global scale.

To capture the core message of these changes, an official promotional video featuring renowned esports caster Jeon Yong-jun was released alongside the service launch. The video, which vividly conveys the fun and intense atmosphere of the competition, is available on the official website and major video channels.

Kim Jung-wook, Chairman of the Nexon Foundation, expressed his sincere hope that through this competition, numerous participants will grow significantly as they gain the valuable experience of working with AI, designing their own strategies, and finding optimal solutions. Registration is open starting today on the official website, where users can sign up to apply for the competition and access various practice problems.