Smart Yangcheon Future Education Center adds self-directed experience zone featuring generative AI, 3D printing, video studio and more; Mokdong and Neolbeundeul centers mark second anniversary with revamped content and expanded family participation
Yangcheon-gu has opened a new self-directed experience zone called the "Digital Creation Studio" inside the Smart Yangcheon Future Education Center and will run special events starting in September to mark the second anniversary of the Mokdong and Neolbeundeul Future Education Centers.
The district operates three Future Education Centers — Smart Yangcheon, Mokdong and Neolbeundeul — each serving a different area of the city and offering hands-on programs in future technologies tailored to each facility's focus, including AI, coding, autonomous driving and drones. Having completed the three-center regional network in 2024, the district has now refreshed the experience content at each center to reflect the rapidly evolving AI and digital landscape and respond to user demand.
The most significant change is at the Smart Yangcheon Future Education Center. Building on its identity as an "AI-integrated maker space" where imagination is turned into tangible results, the center has gone beyond structured classes to introduce the Digital Creation Studio — a self-directed zone where children can choose and explore future technologies on their own terms.
Inside the Digital Creation Studio, visitors can freely try out an AI baduk and gomoku robot, a smart mirror, a video studio announcer experience, generative AI tools and 3D printing. The zone is designed not merely to introduce future technologies but to let participants actively use and create with them — competing against AI, producing original work with generative AI, and getting hands-on with coding and making.
The Mokdong and Neolbeundeul Future Education Centers, both marking their second anniversary this year, have also refreshed their content and broadened participation. Mokdong Future Education Center, positioned as a "future career-linked learning space," offers autonomous driving, coding and XR (extended reality) experiences, while Neolbeundeul Future Education Center, a "digital play and learning convergence space," runs AI robot, drone piloting and coding programs.
One longstanding inconvenience has also been addressed: previously, age-based time slots meant siblings visiting together had to experience the center at different times. The district has changed its operating model so that visitors of all ages can use the experience zone suited to their own age and interests during the same time slot. The eligible age for drone experiences has also been lowered from fourth grade to first grade in elementary school. Parents may now participate alongside their children, transforming the centers from children-only education spaces into venues where the whole family can explore future technology together.
Special events will be held to celebrate the second anniversary. Starting in September, preschoolers born in 2020 and elementary and middle school students who complete an individual experience session at any of the three centers and post a visit verification on social media will receive a limited commemorative gift called the "Haewuri Cube," designed to reflect each center's character, on a first-come, first-served basis. Reservations can be made through the Yangcheon-gu Lifelong Learning Portal, and all experience sessions are free of charge.
To nurture future talent for the AI era, the district runs regular experience sessions and education courses at the three centers, along with a growing lineup of special programs including an AI, autonomous driving and drone competition and an AI-integrated college camp. Last year alone, more than 11,000 people took part in Future Education Center programs, and the district continues to expand the educational infrastructure that brings future technology into everyday life.
"For children, future technology should not be knowledge that is hard to learn — it should be something they can naturally absorb by touching and making things themselves," Yangcheon-gu District Mayor Lee Gi-jae said. "We will continue to expand the future technology education infrastructure and high-quality programs centered on our three regional Future Education Centers to develop creative, convergence-minded talent."
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