Samsung Software Academy for Youth (SSAFY) is Samsung’s CSR education program that fosters software developers of the next generation, with the goal of strengthening youth employment capabilities and expanding the IT ecosystem around the world.

The top students of SSAFY’s 7th round program participated in an open source challenge with Samsung employees as mentors. The final winning team conducted the Samsung Software Developer Conference (SSDC) project, which was presented at the nation’s largest SW conference.

Taking the first steps in open source

36 of the program’s top students from all over the country formed a total of six teams and participated in project development and mentoring over the course of six weeks. Samsung mentors and students alike displayed their passion through their projects both online and offline.

Kim Hye-rim, one of the students, said that she visited her mentor at their workplace, Samsung Electronics, to participate in a business site tour and developer seminar. She recalled that the deep conversation with her mentor was especially memorable. “Through our conversation, I was able to gain a lot of insights from my mentor such as what kind of attitude I need to have as a developer and how to gain ideas from my surroundings and the people around me.”

On the stage of SSDC

Each team passionately presented their results at the final presentation. The top two teams selected by the judges had the opportunity to present their open source project results at SSDC, a technology exchange event for developers.

Another student, Dongwan Kim, expressed that he was proud to have taken one step closer to becoming a developer by communicating and sharing feedback with other developers. He shared his ambition to become a developer who tailors to the user experience. “In the future, I want to be a developer who improves the user’s experience when developing programs by taking into account their inconvenience rather than simply focusing on functionality.”