CoderDojo - Support kids learning to code globally

Since our last report we have reached two large milestones. Earlier in the Summer, we joined forces with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the UK, as a result we are now part of one of the world’s largest effort creating opportunities to get kids involved with coding and digital making. This merger has supported the CoderDojo Foundation in becoming a stronger, more sustainable and resilient organisation, further advancing our mission.

The second milestone achieved, thanks to the growing community of volunteers and supporters, was the verification of the 1,500 active Dojos worldwide. CoderDojo has grown by over 400 Dojos since the beginning of 2017.  Most importantly in this period more than 50,000 new young people aged 7 to 17, located in 75 countries globally, were reached and impacted by the movement. Additional to this we also measure the success of CoderDojo through impact case studies. You can see some of our learners stories below.

Annual Flagship Events at CoderDojo

The 2017 CoderDojo Coolest Projects took place on the 17th of June this year, Coolest Projects is a global showcase that inspires the next generation of digital creators, innovators, changemakers and entrepreneurs. The CoderDojo Coolest Projects Showcase offers young people from the international CoderDojo Community the opportunity to present the projects they have created at their local CoderDojo. It is both a competition and exhibition to showcase, inspire and enable innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship and technology skills in youth innovators aged 7 – 17.

2017 saw CoderDojo Coolest Projects grow to a truly global initiative with CoderDojo Ninjas from all over the world descending upon the RDS, Dublin on Saturday 17th June 2017 to present their apps, websites, games and hardware projects. We had over 1,000+ Ninjas from Ireland, Europe, USA, Japan and Australia showcase their projects.

On October 17th, the fifth annual EUDojo event was held in the in the European Parliament in Brussels. CoderDojo, who recently reached the milestone of having 1,500 coding clubs in 75 countries worldwide, hosted the event along with Ludick Niedmeyer MEP. The event coincided with the fifth year of Europe Code Week. As part of EUDojo volunteers, and parents from across Europe were invited to participate along with 40 young coders who travelled from Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom to the EU Parliament to showcase their coding and technology skills. Here, the children taught MEPs how to write their first lines of code and showed MEPs and sponsors projects they had already created.

Case Studies:

Joseph, aged 16 from CoderDojo Scotland: https://coderdojo.com/news/2017/03/10/joseph-daly-future-makers-awards-finalist/  

Aoife, aged 16 from CoderDojo Sligo:  https://coderdojo.com/news/2017/03/07/12482/

Ruth and Alina from CoderDojo Triangle Park in the US: https://coderdojo.com/news/2017/06/21/ruth-and-alina-ninja-from-ibm-coderdojo-talks-about-their-dojo-and-badging/

Links:

• Celebrating EUCode Week at EUDojo
• CoderDojo

CoderDojo is a volunteer led, global movement of free coding clubs for young people. Dojos operate from anywhere between 20 and 140 children on a weekly/bi-weekly/monthly basis. We currently have 1,300 Dojos, operating in 75 countries worldwide, impacting over 40,000 young people per year, this figure grows everyday! Our main aim is to ensure all of our volunteers are as well equipped as possible to start, sustain and grow Dojo’s in their communities, we offer Champions and mentors support and guidance to do this.

Since the last report, we announced our intention to join force with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the UK, as a result we are now part of the world’s largest  movement to get kids involved with coding and digital making. This merger will support the CoderDojo Foundation in becoming a stronger, more sustainable and resilient organisation advancing our mission.

While we actively encourage everyone to start a Dojo in their community, this project is specifically designed to help support and encourage more girls to join Dojo’s. Following a recent report CoderDojo By Numbers we found that just 29% of Dojo attendees (Ninja’s) are girls, we would like to create gender parity within Dojo’s by raising this figure to at least 40% over the next number of years.

Many Dojos are already taking measures to reach more young girls, we want to work with them to inspire more Dojos to join the movement to reach gender parity! This will only be achieved if everyone in the community and wider ecosystem works together to make it a priority. The funds we receive from GlobalGiving help us to encourage our global community of volunteers to actively increase the number of girls starting and participating in their Dojo’s.

What are we doing?

We are focusing on three areas;

• Content Creation: We will be putting diversity at the forefront when we create content moving forward. We have recently published content tried, tested and approved by girls: https://coderdojo.com/news/2017/04/17/lights-on-with-wearables-sushi/ We are also going to explore more narrative based and goal setting content. We have planned a series working with wearables, one focusing on building apps using App Inventor and a third focusing on using coding skills to solve problems important to them.
• Role Model Series: Highlighting, recognising and promoting the amazing work of Champions and mentors who are working to engage young girls. As well as inspiring ninjas to showcase examples of peer role models.
• Girl-centric Events: Working with existing Dojos to support them in running specific girls events, across the world to increase the awareness of STEAM and its associated benefits to girls in their community.

One more area of focus this year is:

Youth Surveys, we plan on conducting more regular Youth Surveys in 2017 tohelp us learn more about the experiences of young people at CoderDojo and guide our strategy for youths through 2017 and early 2018.

We want to take this opportunity to thank all of our new and ongoing donors for supporting CoderDojo over the holiday period! We hope you will continue to support our vision of giving every child in the world the opportunity to learn how to code in a safe and creative environment. We would love if you could also inform your friends, family or colleagues about our work and encourage them to support us too!

Links:

• CoderDojo Girls: A Guide For Ninjas
• Report: CoderDojo By Numbers
• Sushi Card: Wearables