Millions of children, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs and policy makers will come together in mass events and classrooms to learn programming and related skills.
The idea is making coding more visible, demystify these skills, and bring motivated people together to learn.
Go to http://codeweek.eu to learn more and find your nearest event
This is a grassroots initiative by young advisers to Neelie Kroes, and 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 . Companies including Rovio (Angry Birds), Microsoft, Google, Telefonica, Liberty Global and Facebook are backing EU Code Week, many of them as part of their commitment to the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes says: "Our lives are digital now, so the younger generations in particular need digital skills like coding. In the near future it will be critical for good jobs and essential for starting a business.
Alja Isakovic, from Slovenia, one of the organisers of Code Week EU says: "Technology is shaping our lives and we should not let a minority decide what we use it for and how we use it. We all can do better than just sharing and liking. With coding you can bring your ideas to life, make and build things that will bring joy to others."
How can you participate in EU Code Week?
- Kids/teenagers/adults can participate in coding events
- 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 is coding important?
Each and every interaction between humans and computers is governed by code. Whether you create a web app, follow GPS directions when driving or wish to revolutionize social interactions. Programming is everywhere and fundamental to the understanding of a hyper-connected world.
Basic coding skills will also be needed for many jobs in the nearest future. More than 90% of professional occupations nowadays require some ICT competence. Moreover, ICT practitioners are a key pillar of the modern workforce across all sectors of the European economy, with demand growing annually by 3% and the number of graduates from computer science not keeping pace. As a result many open vacancies for ICT practitioners cannot be filled, despite the high level of unemployment in Europe. If we do not appropriately address this issue at a European and national level, we may face a shortage of up to 900,000 ICT professionals by 2020.
Making ICT careers more attractive is one of the objectives of the European initiative "Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs", a European multi-stakeholder partnership that aims at facilitating cooperation among business, education providers, public and private actors to address the mismatch in digital skills in the European labour market also by modernising education.
