Code Club goes worldwide

Code Club was launched last year, co-founded by .net Awards winner Clare Sutcliffe and Linda Sandvik. Since its inception, over 800 Code Clubs now exist in the UK, and Code Club World will now take the concept worldwide.

According to a press release, the new scheme is a separate entity from the UK, with the main difference being that volunteer support for Code Club World will be offered by the volunteer community itself. Code Club World will provide an open source framework that includes advice on founding and running a Code Club, finding volunteers and creating a community. Teaching materials will be supplied via GitHub, and new projects will be written for every school term. The initial launch will include support for French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Ukrainian and Turkish.

The first two Code Club World communities will be in Luxembourg and Kiev, by web developer Patrick Welfringer and TA Venture director and IDCEE conference organiser Viktoriya Tigipko, respectively. Tigipko said coding today was important for everyone, because we live in a digital world: “Our children — ‘digital natives’ — have to know how it works. As they say, there are two types of people: those who rule computers and those who are ruled by computers. We want our children to rule computers, and we are happy to partner with the Code Club project in Ukraine.”

According to Welfringer, Code Club is an “ideal solution” for addressing code literacy issues: “By providing volunteers and a proven curriculum for after-school workshops, they come to the rescue of teachers that don't have the knowledge, lack the time and have no course material. The world needed Code Club UK to realise that it can be done: it only takes an hour a week with the right curriculum, a teacher and a programmer to make kids code-literate. Now it's up to the world to act.”

Read our interview with Code Club co-founder Clare Sutcliffe about why she feels it's important for kids to code, and on Code Club's worldwide ambitions.