Smilegate Hope Studio said on Monday that 12 partners, including game companies and public institutions, will take part in the 2026 Youth Esports Festival. The event was organised to offer children and teenagers at local child centres nationwide opportunities to explore game-related careers and experience culture.

Twelve partners, including the Nexon Foundation, Supercell, Kakao Games, the Korea Creative Content Agency and Amazon Web Services, will join the event. They will support it under a “collective impact” model that seeks to solve social issues through multilateral cooperation by drawing on their respective expertise and capabilities.

The Nexon Foundation and Supercell will provide game intellectual property for KartRider Rush+ and Brawl Stars. Kakao Games will provide an experiential corporate social responsibility programme called Friends Game Land on the Go. The Hankook Tire Sharing Foundation will provide a 45-seat Tieum Bus, while Amazon Web Services and the Korea Creative Content Agency will support souvenirs and event operations.

New partners the Gwangju Information and Culture Industry Promotion Agency and the Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency will share venue rental and match-operation know-how with the existing partner, the Daejeon Information and Culture Industry Promotion Agency. The T1 Esports Academy, joining for the first time this year, will handle online education programmes and career counselling, while Bigpicture Interactive will run the tournament and the National Council of Community Child Centers will handle participant recruitment and management.

This year, for the first time, online education programmes, qualifiers and offline finals will be held across three regions nationwide, including the Seoul metropolitan area and Gangwon Province, Chungcheong and Jeolla provinces and Jeju Island, and Gyeongsang provinces. About 7,400 children and teenagers from 256 local child centres nationwide will take part.

The event began with online education in May and completed online qualifiers in June. Offline finals will be held in Busan on Monday and in Gwangju on Tuesday. The festival’s main event, including an all-star match and a game culture festival, is scheduled to be held in Daejeon on Aug. 11.

A Nexon Foundation official said the organisation expects more children will be able to experience esports this year as the scale of regional tournaments expands with public institutions in Busan and Gwangju. The official said the foundation hopes children can grow in a healthy way by learning how to collaborate and communicate through games.

A Supercell official said it was meaningful to work with various partners. The official said the company plans to continue providing support in various ways so that underprivileged children interested in games and esports can pursue their dreams.