CoderDojo is a global volunteer-led community of free programming workshops for young people. The movement is a

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

organisation with individual clubs (called "Dojos") acting independently. A charity called the ''CoderDojo Foundation'' operates out of Dublin, Ireland, and supports the various clubs by providing a central website and some other support services. Supporters of CoderDojo believe it is part of the solution to addressing the global shortage of programmers by getting young people more involved with

ICT ICT may refer to: Sciences and technology * Information and communications technology * Image Constraint Token, in video processing * Immunochromatographic test, a rapid immunoassay used to detect diseases such as anthrax * In-circuit test, in ...

learning. The movement has seen significant growth since its founding. The CoderDojo Foundation estimates 1,250 Dojos spread across 69 countries, with a growth rate of several new Dojos every week.

History

Founded in July 2011 by

James Whelton James Whelton is an Irish computer coder, venture capital advisor, and co-founder of CoderDojo, a network of free computer clubs for children. At the age of 16, Whelton became famous for hacking the iPod Nano and creating watch faces for the devi ...

and

Bill Liao Bill Liao (born William Fu Wei Liao, 1967) is an Australian entrepreneur. He is a venture partner with SOSV and recognised as one of the Top 100 minority ethnic leaders in technology by the Financial Times. Career Liao is a social networking ...

, the first Dojo took place in NSC Cork, Ireland, on 23 July. James and Bill were self-taught programmers and wanted to create a space where young people could learn code in a social environment. In less than one year, the CoderDojo movement was spread across Ireland and other cities like London in England, and San Francisco in the United States. In May 2017, Raspberry Pi foundation merged with CoderDojo.

Press Coverage

CoderDojo received positive reviews from newspapers including BBC, CNN, The Guardian, The Irish Times and TechCrunch. In 2015, Salesforce announced a partnership and a grant of $200,000 to CoderDojo in order to help "support 14 CoderDojo code clubs – or Dojos – globally, with each of them being run by Salesforce.com "champions".

CoderDojo Girls

Many CoderDojo volunteers focus on improving the extreme shortage of women in technology by using specific strategies to engage girls. In particular, challenging the socially accepted idea among young women that the world of the computer sciences is "not for them". Some Dojos have even chosen to run special CoderDojo Girls sessions to encourage young women to participate in computer science. There has been some success with attracting girls into Dojos through making female mentors visible to newcomers.

CoderDojo Foundation

Established in mid-2013 by cofounder James Whelton, the CoderDojo Foundation is focused on supporting, scaling, and empowering the CoderDojo Community. With a small core team of 6 people based in Dogpatch Labs, Dublin, Ireland, the Foundation advises new and existing Dojos, develops resources to assist Dojos, and manages international partnerships and events on behalf of the Community. The focus is on scaling the CoderDojo movement to make coding clubs even more accessible for young people all over the world. The foundation has a stated target of encouraging 100,000 children to code regularly and having 1,500 Dojos spread across 60 countries.

References

External links