CoderDojo

CoderDojo
Formation 23 July 2011 (2011-07-23)
Founders Bill Liao, James Whelton
Founded at Cork, Ireland
Location
Bill Liao, James Whelton, Una Fox, Sean O’Sullivan, Noel Ruane
Key people
 Mary Moloney, Giustina Mizzoni, Peter O’Shea, Rosa Langhammer
Website CoderDojo

CoderDojo is a global volunteer-led community of free programming clubs for young people between 7 and 17. The movement is a 'grass roots' 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[1] and some other support services. Supporters of CoderDojo believe it is part of the solution to addressing the Global shortage[2][3] of programmers by exposing young people to ICT at a young age. The movement has seen significant growth since its founding. The CoderDojo Foundation estimates 600 Dojos spread across 60 countries, with a growth rate of several new Dojos every week.

History

Founded in July 2011 by James Whelton[4] & Bill Liao, the first Dojo took place in Cork, Ireland, on 23 July.[5] 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.[6][7]

Press Coverage

CoderDojo has received positive reviews from many newspapers, including BBC,[8] CNN,[9] The Guardian,[10] The Irish Times[11] and TechCrunch[12]

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'."[13]

CoderDojo Girls

Many CoderDojo volunteers focus on improving the extreme shortage of women in technology [14][15] 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 co-founder 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 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:

See also

References

External links

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