The National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) said on July 13 it held the launch ceremony for the 2026 Open Source Contribution Academy on July 11 at the Korea Science and Technology Hall in Seoul.

The Open Source Contribution Academy is a talent development programme that supports domestic developers in taking part in the development process of global open source projects through a range of contribution activities, including code development, feature improvements, documentation and bug fixes.

Mentors and mentees from 11 project teams taking part in open source projects in future core technology areas, including digital infrastructure and workflow-based technologies, attended the ceremony. About 260 people took part. Ahead of 13 weeks of activities, participants shared project plans and operational directions by project.

Soo-hong Park (박수홍), head of the open source group at Samsung Electronics, and Seung-rok Jung (정승록), a principal AI software engineer at AMD, introduced the latest trends in the global open source ecosystem and the growth direction for developers in the AI era through invited lectures.

Kyeong-rok Lee (이경록), head of NIPA's Software Convergence Division, said, "We will support domestic developers so they can work in the global open source ecosystem and build practical capabilities and international competitiveness."