The third edition of EU Code Week will take place between October 10 and 18. Millions of children, young adults, adults, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs and policymakers will again come together in events and classrooms across Europe to learn to create with code.
“Digital skills are essential for a true digital single market and help us understand how our increasingly connected world is built. Coding is not just about computer programming, it’s also about improving problem solving, communication, collaboration and creativity which are needed for the jobs of today and the future,” said Andrus Ansip, European Commission vice president for the digital single market.
The idea is to show how you can bring ideas to life with code, to make programming more visible, demystify these skills and bring motivated people together to learn. If you are a school, a child, a coder, a young adult, a parent, teacher, a business – now is the time to start planning your Code Week event and put it on the codeweek.eu map.
Coding helps us to unleash our creativity and work collaboratively with wonderful people both near us and all over the world
Alessandro Bogliolo, leader of the EU Code Week team of 90 volunteers, said: “From the beginning of time we did many things using stone, iron, paper and pencil that have transformed our lives. Now we live in a different era where our world is moulded in code. Different eras have different jobs and skill demands. During Code Week we want to give every European the opportunity to discover coding and have fun with it. Let’s learn coding to shape our future.”
EU Code Week is a grass-root movement run by volunteers who promote coding in their countries as Code Week ambassadors. The initiative was launched in 2013 by the Young Advisors for the Digital Agenda. Last year more than 150,000 people participated in 4,200 coding events in 36 countries in Europe and beyond.
As part of its strategy for a digital single market, the European Commission is supporting EU Code Week and other independent initiatives which aim to boost digital skills, including programming, for different target groups. The Commission will also address digital skills and expertise in future initiatives on skills and training and will develop a digital skills strategy.
How can you participate?
• Kids/teenagers/adults can participate in coding events and organise their own events to show others how you create with code.
• Coders can organise workshops in local schools, hack spaces or community centres.
• Teachers who code can hold coding classes, share their lessons plans, organise workshops for colleagues.
• Teachers who don’t code can organise seminars or invite parents or students to teach each other coding.
• Parents can encourage their kids to participate in a coding workshop.
• Businesses and non-profit organisations can host coding workshops, lend their staff as coaches in a ‘back-to-coach’ action, organise fun coding challenges for students or offer sponsorship for coding events.
• Everyone who participates in a coding activity can tell us about their experience and inspire others.
Why learn to code?
Today we live in a world that has been affected by rapid advances in technology. The way we work, communicate, shop and think has changed dramatically. In order to cope with these rapid changes and to make sense of the world around us, we need to not only develop our understanding of how technology works but also develop skills and capabilities that will help us to adapt to living in this new era.
Learning to code helps us to make sense of how things work, explore ideas and make things, for both work and play. What’s more it helps us to unleash our creativity and work collaboratively with wonderful people both near us and all over the world.
EU Code Week
EU Code Week has attracted the support of coding and education movements like CoderDojo and RailsGirls and of major tech and IT companies who are all helping bring coding to millions of children for example by offering coding taster sessions, by developing learning modules and helping to train teachers.
Under the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs, Microsoft, Google, Telefonica, Liberty Global and Facebook, together with EU School, have launched the EU Coding Initiative and many more Grand Coalition partners organise events during EU Code Week.
Following the popularity of EU Code Week, Africa Code Week will be organised for the first time this year. Led by a multi-stakeholder partnership, Africa Code Week will be taking place in 10 African countries with over 1,000 coding events for children and adults expected across the continent.
Twitter: @codeWeekEU
Hashtag: #codeEU
Facebook: codeEU