The first “Future Star Youth Programming Challenge Conference" was officially launched in Beijing recently aiming at the popularization of programming education for children.
Coding with a colorful keyboard. Image Credit: Paul Esch-Laurent/Unsplash
The event was jointly organized by JD education (京东教育) and Hetao (核桃编程). The purpose of the event was to promote children’s programming education. The winners of the competition were awarded with certifications from the two companies and various other prizes.
JD education said that the intention of this conference was to maintain the enthusiasm in the children interested in learning programming through its platform and at the same time let more children understand and learn the basics through the activities at the conference.
At present it includes three kind of businesses: B2C online learning platform, vocational education program, and primary and secondary education project and has developed online and offline teaching cooperation’s with hundreds of quality education institutions.
Founded in August 2017, Hetao is one of the leading companies in the field of children’s programming education. The company is committed to promoting programming education through scientific and technological means. It closed the latest round of funding tjhis year on Februray 18 worth CNY 120 million. Hillhouse capital led this A+ round followed by Source Code Capital and XVC.
Wang Yuhang (王宇航), the co-founder and CEO of Hetao said: “We have witnessed countless children who never knew or understood programming, but gradually fell in love with it. They opened up to the world of computers and artificial intelligence through programming.”
He further added: “I am very grateful to JD education for choosing us to co-host this childrens programming competition conference. JD education is playing a great role in the development of artificial intelligence related education. Through our joint efforts, we will make the families realize the value and importance of programming education and bring high quality content to the students.”
Recently, another children's leading programming education firm Codemao (编程猫) and Beijing Forbidden City Culture Development (北京故宫宫廷文化发展有限公) held a signing ceremony in Shenzhen. The two sides formally reached a strategic in-depth cooperation to use technology to promote the cultural heritage of the Forbidden City.
Art education, children's programming, and other fields have received much attention in terms of financing in the first half of 2019. As China continues to incorporate sports, art and other disciplines and comprehensive quality evaluation into performance evaluation standards, and the gradual opening of the after-school service market, 2019 Quality education will continue to attract investments in the second half of the year.
Quality education is a popular track as far as capital attention is concerned. According to the “Implementation Opinions on Regulating Online Training in Schools” “关于规范校外线上培训的实施意见” released by the Ministry of Education and six other departments, quality education is the government’s main support for encouraging development and is still in the policy dividend period.
At present, there are more than 200 children's programming entrepreneurial projects and companies on the market.
In the field of quality education, the number of outdoor education finances has grown and is set to become a new hot sector of the industry. At the same time, children’s programming education is still on top of the list for capitals, in which as mentioned above Hetao (核桃编程), XiaoMa.Wang (小码王) and Codemao (编程猫) received a large amount of financing of over CNY 100 million.