As we enter the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the coding craze is sweeping the world. China, which is a threat to Korea＊s IT powerhouse, started teaching coding in public education in 2001, India in 2013, and the United Kingdom in 2014. South Korea, the world＊s leading IT powerhouse, was late to the party, starting with middle school in 2018. However, even before 2018, there was widespread skepticism about the ability of South Korea＊s entrance exam-oriented public education system to produce talented engineers. In fact, many experts assess that the coding education currently provided in Korean schools is only scratching the surface. The class time itself is so short that it can be said that the year is over just by reading the table of contents in the workbook and teaching only the concepts, and it is difficult to experience actual coding. Most schools are teaching block coding, not text coding. Text coding requires learning programming languages such as C, C#, C++, Python, etc. which are rather difficult to learn at first. Therefore, all schools are teaching block coding, which makes it very difficult to develop IT talent. As a result, all the kids who are interested in coding and have dreams of working in the field are moving to private education.

 

Unit Company is a group of text coding education experts with over 20 years of experience.

The world’s first AI coding education robot ‘UCA’ was born from their hands. 

Unit Company is an AI customization robotics company that uses AI technology to provide users with customized robots that they want. CEO Sunhee Choi is a pioneer in Korean coding education, having taught coding for over 20 years. Since starting the coding education business in 2001, Choi has made constant efforts to cultivate high-quality coding experts, and as a result, has produced countless winners in various prestigious competitions such as Korea Olympiad In Informatics and Prep for USA Computing Olympiad (USACO). Choi is active as an expert in global companies around the world. Choi has been providing high-quality coding education to various students and IT-related workers beyond time and space constraints. However, as the importance of coding has increased in recent years, and securing outstanding IT talent has become a national competitiveness, Choi has been thinking and researching for a long time to systematically produce more outstanding IT talent, and has developed CA, an AI coding education robot. Choi says “Text coding is difficult and high-level, so a single teacher cannot provide quality education to a large number of students. For this reason, public education in South Korea focuses on block coding, which is a level that children can get interested in coding. However, in order to produce outstanding talents, text coding education must be taught from an early age. UCA is the world’s first coding education robot that can professionally teach text coding.”

 

Absence of professional educators, it is time to move away from public education centered on entrance exams and focus on teaching text coding.

Coding is the process of developing computer programs, called software, and apps and the web, which includes block coding and text coding. Block coding is a way of coding by stacking blocks, each of which is already programmed, by dragging and dropping or clicking. It is easy to use, but it has clear limitations because it is often already part of a program. Text coding, on the other hand, is a coding method where you literally type out the language you’re going to use to program, and most programming languages like C, C#, C++, Python, etc. use this method. It’s a challenging approach in that you need to be able to use all the commands to some degree, and you need to code all the details, so it takes a lot of time and effort to learn how to use it and produce results. However, it’s challenging enough to allow creators to develop as much detail as they want, and it gives them so much freedom that there are almost no limits to what they can create. Therefore, in most developed countries, text coding (problem-solving algorithms) is the main focus of education. However, as mentioned earlier, Korea has been focusing on block coding education due to the lack of specialized educators and entrance examination-oriented public education. 

 

With UCA, one teacher can provide high-quality text coding education to many students.

All of the problem solutions from the Korea Olympiad In Informatics for decades are in UCA’s head.

Choi, who has been studying coding for 30 years and fostering coding talent for over 20 years, developed UCA as a way to overcome the problems of coding education in Korea and built a coding education platform optimized for fostering talent. UCA, a text coding education robot, is like a teacher in a coding class. It is a robot that can be used by a single teacher to teach coding to a large group of students, and when a student gets stuck on a problem or program, it responds to the student’s call, comes to the student, fixes the wrong code, and gives the answer. When students are learning to code on a PC and have a question, they can call the robot, which will answer the question and provide a solution via voice and on-screen chatbot. UCA supports text coding in C, C++, Python, JAVA, etc. and utilizes a compiler on the server to minimize computer resources. It also has a real-time algorithm-based problem grading site, and if the source code is incorrect, the UCA chatbot, which uses generative AI, points out and explains the error. The AI and algorithms are based on a huge amount of data accumulated over 20 years of training thousands of students, including all the types of wrong answers they made while solving all the questions from the Korea Olympiad In Informatics for decades. In addition to solving problems, the AI learning assistant helps users receive customized content that is suitable for their personal level, and the automatic grading of coding problems improves learning efficiency by showing the aforementioned wrong answers and how to solve them. These features give students, beginners, and people who are new to coding the opportunity to not only learn to code, but also to get acquainted with AI. Industry experts have called UCA “the best education solution to prepare for the digital workforce of 2025 and beyond, and to develop the coding talent of the future.” Choi says “We believe that our data on coding education is the best in Korea. UCA, an AI coding robot that utilizes generative AI technology, becomes a teacher and helps students solve problems. It also has the ability to connect to the database through UCOS.AI, provide lectures, provide questions, execute answer codes, and grade AI in real time.”

 

Exciting and fun coding education with ‘PYBOT’.

It is expected to open up new avenues of coding for students.

In addition to UCA, Unit Company also developed and launched PYBOT last month, a coding education robot that makes coding approachable for students with its cute appearance.  PYBOT is small enough to fit on a desk and cuddly enough to be cute, but it’s very capable. It is an educational coding robot that helps children learn coding in a fun way while stimulating their curiosity to improve their creativity and exploration, and the main parts, including PCB boards, were developed and produced in Korea. PYBOT aims to improve problem-solving skills, logic, and thinking skills from basic to intermediate and advanced courses through PYTHON programming language (TEXT CODING). It is a model capable of data analysis, AI machine learning, and deep learning, and is aiming to win the first prize in the competition by implementing line tracing and autonomous driving through team classes (participation in the competition). Choi says “PYBOT is a complementary product to our web-based platform, a robot that helps kids use their imagination to build applications of their choice. It’s called PYBOT because it’s based on PYTHON. We will hold two competitions this year, one in the summer and one in the winter, for middle school, high school, and university, and in the future, we plan to include it in the general prize list so that those who are capable can get practical help such as employment. The first through third place winners will receive the Minister of Science and ICT Award, the Director General of the Korean Intellectual Property Office, and the Director General of the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards. We are currently producing textbooks and plan to list them on the Public Procurement Service and school marketplaces soon.” PYBOT, launched after several years of research and development, is expected to present the optimal career path for students by considering their individual interests, strengths, and potential capabilities. The Unit Company has secured the technology to customize and manufacture AI robots, and has developed and supplied customized robots for each field to accommodate the increasingly diverse needs of customers in the robot market, and has a track record of manufacturing and supplying various types of AI robots to various educational institutions, governments, and companies for the past several years, including education, medical care, and epidemic prevention. 

 

It can be customized into robots that can be applied to various industries, such as the AI-based Bible education robot ‘ADAM’, sterilization and disinfection robots, and healer robots. 

ADAM is an AI-powered robot that has intelligence and emotion, and utilizes AI technology to provide the most appropriate Bible answers based on the emotional state it has learned. It is equipped with a voice dialog function that utilizes AI technology to answer questions that are tailored to the user’s environment, and contextualized Bible verse suggestions so that you can utilize the necessary verses from the other person’s Bible. The results of these conversations are collected and managed as a database of learners, and the data is analyzed and reused. This is a feature that can be utilized not only for the Bible, but also for providing services to strengthen future generations’ digital literacy, efficient energy use, AI ethics, and fair trade management. By utilizing a variety of sensors to ensure safe and reliable indoor autonomous driving, it is possible to not only drive, but also to act as a night watchman with AI technology. These functions can be managed without being limited by space by providing a robot control system, as well as providing AI + IoT functions using AI and IoT like other robots. Currently, ADAM is being used for various educational purposes at Sahmyook University. In addition, there is a sterilization and quarantine robot that measures people’s body temperature with a thermal imaging camera in hospitals, nursing homes, public institutions, and private companies, and the company is expanding its robot business into various fields with the Healer Robot, which is being developed at the request of a nursing hospital, scheduled to be released soon.

 

Establishing a platform that combines UCA and AI coding education.

Unit Company will actively pioneer not only the domestic public education but also the global education market.

The Ministry of Education has announced a policy to operate AI-based courseware (digital textbook) based on existing book-type textbooks in 2025. In line with this, Unit Company plans to use AI-based edutech to develop digital electronic whiteboards (low carbon emissions and energy saving) suitable for future classes and supply them to each school in conjunction with the linked UCA and digital blackboards. The company is building a platform that combines UCA and AI coding education. It plans to provide online lectures on coding, algorithm theory, and algorithmic problem solving to learners, as well as an online coding environment where they can write and run source code on their own. The company plans to actively explore overseas markets such as Southeast Asia and the United States beyond the domestic market, and has also completed the PCT patent application for UCA. Unit Company has already registered or is applying for 2 PCT patents and 8 domestic patents for related technologies. Choi says “We plan to integrate all of the aforementioned education systems and strive to foster advanced coding talent by providing an interactive online coding and algorithm education platform that supports everything from basic coding grammar to advanced algorithm learning.”

신태섭 기자  tss79@naver.com