Telekom Romania and Telekom Romania Foundation support young programmers through a new edition of the CoderDojo Workshops

CoderDojo Bucharest programming workshops are preparing to welcome a new series of participants in the 2020-2021 school year. Over 300 children aged between 8 and 17 will learn about programming during the workshops supported by Telekom Romania, Telekom Romania Foundation and Coder Dojo Bucharest Association. The workshops are free of charge and will run online for as long as there are restrictions imposed in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, while the exact dates, frequency and duration of each workshop will be decided by the mentors, together with the participants.

This year, students were able to choose from a range of 21 workshops that present concepts and contribute to acquiring digital skills for a wide range of technologies. Thus, at the registration, the participants could opt for one of the three available categories, depending on their age and level of training, each of the categories proposing workshops with adapted themes and level of difficulty:

• Explorer, dedicated to children aged 8-12 years old, who want to discover the notions of programming. Participants will take part in workshops on and with programming languages and technologies such as Scratch, Microbit and Minecraft Education Edition.
• Adventurer, for children aged 12-15 years old, eager to discover and learn programming languages that use lines of code, all during workshops on Algorithmics, Java Script and Python.
• Master, category developed for adolescents (13-17 years old) with an advanced level of knowledge and understanding in the field of programming languages, who want to pursue a career in IT; workshops addressed to them include detailed information about algorithms – advanced level, web development, Flutter and Godot.

Due to the high demand for introductory workshops in algorithmics, Java Script and Python, the organizers have supplemented their number with three more, so that students can participate in large numbers. The themes and curriculum for each of the three categories described above were developed by volunteer mentors, specialists in programming, robotics and the latest technologies. CoderDojo Bucharest workshops thus provide current knowledge about the constantly evolving fields, all in an attractive and pleasant manner.

’’We are glad that we can continue this initiative and we thank both the volunteer mentors and the participants for their involvement. The year 2020 came not only with challenges for each of us as an individual, but also for us as a society, unfortunately affecting institutions and areas that are at the very core of society. These include the education system, and the fact that we can contribute to the training of young IT specialists is very important to us. It may seem a happy paradox, but the reality is that, now more than ever, through technology we make possible the education of those specialists who in a few years will open the way to the future technologies. It is a responsibility we take, knowing that every contribution we make to the development of the younger generation’s digital skills is a step forward’’, stated Ruxandra Vodă, Corporate Communication Director, Telekom Romania.

Telekom Romania and Telekom Romania Foundation support the project of the CoderDojo Bucharest Association, contributing to the development and improvement of digital skills of children and adolescents. The specialists trained this way will be able to integrate more easily on the labor market, at the same time responding to the growing demand for labor in the field of IT services.

“We start this new edition in 2020 with many challenges due to the events we are facing these days and which also affect the education system. Together with Telekom Romania and Telekom Romania Foundation, we will be able to provide children with the right environment to gain programming skills and more, and through technology we will continue the online learning system so that children can learn and develop further their programming skills. All this would not be possible without volunteer mentors, whom we thank for their help in introducing the young students to the secrets of programming”, says Oana Vasilache, President, CoderDojo Bucharest.

CoderDojo is an international movement, which started in Ireland in 2011, with the main purpose to create an informal space for kids that are interested in discovering the world of programming, through regular sessions outside the school. At CoderDojo, children learn to code, to develop websites, applications, programs, games, and many more. Dojos are initiated, conducted and mentored by volunteers. CoderDojo turns programming into a social and fun experience.

CoderDojo Bucharest, supported by Telekom Romania and Telekom Romania Foundation, is one of the first CoderDojo concepts organized in Romania.