What is coding worth in Europe’s future? Try 1 million jobs
What is coding worth in Europe’s future? Try 1 million jobs
Europe is currently facing a relevant shortage of ICT specialised workers projected to be 1 million within 2020.
Helping young people develop the ability to code, as well as a range of other ICT skills, is, therefore, becoming more and more important in Europe. To help achieve this, the Code & Youth project is undertaking activities to bring coding education to Europe’s youth. The project hopes that raising awareness of coding in younger Europeans will create a stronger base education for these individuals to get a leg-up in the labour market in the future. Introducing coding in a fun, hands-on way is also hoped to lessen the gender divide by encouraging girls to develop an interest and consider the field of ICT.
About the project
The Code & Youth project is a European project within the Erasmus plus framework (2016-2-CY02-KA205-000819). The project combines the knowledge of five partners from four European countries (Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy) to create an innovative methodology to support teachers and students in approaching coding and robotics for teenagers. The project plans to use programmable Edison robots, developed by Australian-based Microbric, to help teach teens more about coding and robotics in a fun, hands-on way.
The project is coordinated by Cyprus Computer Society, whose vice-president Andreas Loutsions is the coordinator of Code & Youth project. Partners of the project are, namely: A&A Emphasys Centre from Nicosi; the National Institute of Research “Demokritos” based in Athens (Greece) which is known for its 50 years of work in STEM fields; Culture Goes Europe (Germany), experienced in issuing Open Badges; and Futuro Digitale (Italy), known for its extended work in youth services and ICT education for young people.
The Code & Youth project is undertaking a range of ways to support teachers and students in coding and robotics, including:
- Using an open badge system (developed by the Mozilla Foundation) to recognise what students have learned and track this learning through an e-learning platform focused on coding & robotics.
- Organising a coding summer school for 100 young people between 14 and 16 years old in each partner country (forthcoming).
- Working together on a 2-year project begun in 2016 culminating in a European coding competition and robot sumo battle in Nicosia in October 2017 using Edison robots.
- Organising a national conference in each partner country, inviting important coding practitioners and attracting attention on existing coding initiatives for youth, as well as promoting the usage of robots like the Edison robot to make young people more interested in entering the program and learning new modules.
- Offering innovative material produced for teachers and students freely available in different languages on the Code and Youth e-learning platform, which will also offer resources, links, and materials useful for ICT centres and decision-makers.
The project is excited to employ the open badge philosophy, making it easy to demonstrate how much students (or anyone) have learned together within a general framework of coding education. The system allows users to demonstrate their level of knowledge, as well as teamwork and student interaction with each other, which are elements schools do not often manage to include. The open badges will be made even more interesting through the project’s use of Edison robots, encouraging young people to program in teams and encouraging transversal competencies.
Both the Meet Edison team and the Code & Youth team are excited for the project, bound to help teenagers have an awesome summer school about coding.
Join the mission at www.codeandyouth.eu
The Edison robots being used by Code & Youth are available throughout Europe. Learn more at www.meetedison.com
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