22/10/2018
Children Learned Coding, the Language of Technology With the “Coding Tomorrow” Campaign.
VODAFONE’S CODING TRAINING PROJECT CONTINUED IN MARDIN
Vodafone Turkey Foundation keeps on carrying coding training across Turkey. Within the scope of the “Coding Tomorrow” project carried out with the cooperation of Habitat Association and the support of Ministry of Family and Social Policy, the new stop of the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck was Mardin.
In the care of Provincial Directorate of National Training of Mardin and the Governorate, nearly 150 children, aged between 7 and 14 were given coding training, the language of technology, with the training programs provided in the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck.
With the goal of pioneering social change and development, Vodafone Turkey Foundation, continues to establish digital-future-ready generations. In the scope of the “Coding Tomorrow” project carried out with the cooperation of Habitat Association and the supports of Ministry of Family and Social Policy, the new stop of the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, which took the road with the aim of bringing coding training across Turkey, was Mardin.
Coding training for 150 children
With the local support of Provincial Directorate of National Training of Mardin and the Governorate, nearly 150 children, aged between 7 and 14 were trained for coding, the language of technology. Together with the training programs given in the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, the total number of children who have been given coding training in Mardin has exceeded 400 so far, while it is aimed to reach 500 children in total with ongoing classroom trainings. The total number of children to be reached in the Southeastern Region will be 3,800.
Coding Tomorrow Training Truck’s stop in Mardin was Sakarya Aycan Çaltekin Elementary School. Children from neighboring villages also attended the training event. Vodafone Turkey CEO Colman Deegan, Vodafone Turkey Foundation Chairman Hasan Süel and The Head of Habitat Association Chairman Sezai Hazır also watched the training and chatted with the children.
Colman Deegan: “We target to grow generations that can code”
Colman Deegan noted that they wanted a generation that does not consume but produce, and added:
“In order to produce technology, it is necessary to learn coding, which is accepted as the language of the digital world. With our coding training, our children have an idea about programming, work to bring out their creativity, create their own imaginary worlds, and they can produce their own games. For them, we are opening the doors of innovative thinking. We have been continuing our project successfully for two years. In this period, we trained more than 12,000 children in coding. Our target in the new period is to reach 20,000 more children. In line with this goal, we headed out with the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck. We are willing to reach as many children as possible by going to villages and small towns. As the “Coding Tomorrow” team, we have already held training events in Mardin. The total number of children we have given coding training in Mardin has exceeded 400 until now. With the ongoing training in the classrooms, we aim to reach a total of 500 children in Mardin.”
The Head of Habitat Association Chairman Sezai Hazır stated:
“As Habitat Association, we have been carrying out activities in the development areas of social transformation and information for 20 years. We are a non-governmental organization working in the field of sustainable development. With ‘Coding Tomorrow’ project, we want to transform put into practice our knowledge-driven transformation through children. Knowing about coding is now as important as literacy. As in all European countries, the biggest obstacle for engaging encoding to Turkish education system is the lack of trained educators to provide this training. In this regard, we train young people within the scope of our project and they deliver their knowledge to children. With our Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, we are aiming to reach the children who cannot have such technology training in the disadvantaged regions in our country. Mardin, is a very important spot within our “Coding Tomorrow” project. It was one of the 5 pilot cities in the early application phase of the project. Here, we realized a children’s hackathon with the broadest participation in Turkey.”
Coding for everyone
Coding Tomorrow Training Truck will cover over 6 km and reach 2,500 children in 12 provinces in about 7 months. On the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, which goes to villages and small towns as well as city centers, children are given 2 separate 4-hour trainings every day for 1 week long. A basic coding program called Scratch is being used in the training which is developed for children by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), known as the best technical university in the world.
Target: Reaching 30 thousand children
Children between 7-14 are given coding training all across Turkey with the “Coding Tomorrow” project. Theoretical and practical training sessions are held by volunteering instructors on the subjects of introduction to programming, app making, creating stories and games. Since August 2016 more than 12,000 children in 30 provinces are reached so far. According to the results of the first year of the project, the percentage of children who say “I can create my own game with Scratch” has increased by 31 percent. There is also a 35 percent increase in those who say “I can write harder and longer programs to solve a software problem”. In the new period, 20 thousand more children will be given coding training. Thus, more than 30,000 children in 60 provinces will be introduced with coding by the end of April 2019.
Surprising jobs will arise
According to OECD’s last report on digital economy, two out of every three children will have jobs that are unknown to us today. In the future, there will be jobs like robotics veterinary, holoportation expert, ethical hacker, emotion designer, data miner, artificial organ manufacturer, or dream facilitator. These code-dependent jobs will take their places in our lives in 20 years.