South Korea’s video gaming giant Nexon on Tuesday announced the official launch of the Nexon Foundation which has been tasked with spearheading Nexon’s various social contribution programs here and abroad.

In doing so, Nexon is joining the likes of its domestic rivals Netmarble Games and NCSoft which also operate similar foundations dedicated to corporate social responsibility projects.

The new foundation will continue to operate and expand Nexon’s existing CSR programs, while initiating new projects. This includes the establishment of a second children’s rehabilitation center in Korea and funding a new global brick play-based creativity aid project for underprivileged kids.

The Nexon Foundation is slated to align its future CSR projects under the new slogan of “From a CHILD.” It represents Nexon’s vision to help children in need grow in the fields of CHILD — creativity, health, internet technology, learning and dreams.

“The Nexon Foundation will continue to carry on this mission in a larger scale and under a more effective method,” said the Nexon Foundation’s new chairman Kim Jung-wook in a press conference held Tuesday at Nexon Korea’s headquarters in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province.

The foundation foremost plans to establish a second children’s rehabilitation hospital in Korea. It has yet to confirm the size of its funding and the details of the new clinic, including its location, size and operational arrangement.

Nexon has already contributed 20 billion won ($18.64 million) toward a children’s rehab hospital in partnership with the Purme Foundation — Purme Foundation Nexon Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital that opened in Seoul in 2016.

As of now, Korea has only four specialized children’s rehab clinics. Of them, only one facility is able to provide long-term treatment, and patients seeking such services have to wait for an average of 10 months to be admitted, Kim said.

The Nexon Foundation is also funding a new global project that seeks to help children living in underprivileged areas foster creativity through open-ended brick play — using plastic Lego bricks to build structures and objects from the imagination.

“Brick play is a great way to foster development and problem-solving,” said Priya Bery, the founding CEO of Los Angles, California-based private foundation Soho Impact driving the global brick play-based creativity aid project. 

According to the CEO, Soho Impact has been working running successful pilot programs for its brick play project in Myanmar, Cambodia and Nepal. And this year, the program will officially launch in South Korea and the US, and gradually expand into other countries in Asia and beyond.

Meanwhile, Nexon hopes to continue its existing CSR programs through its new body, including the Nexon Youth Programming Challenge that encourages kids to learn coding, as well as its “Little Bookroom” project in which the firm builds public libraries for children in overlooked communities.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)