Students From Adana “Coding Tomorrow” Was Third In The World At China.

Vodafone Turkey Foundation, with the “Coding Tomorrow” project launched in cooperation with Habitat Association, continues to prepare young generations to the digital future. “XSun Team”, formed by the students of Adana Vakıfbank Middle School, that attended the coding training and children’s hackathon held in Adana within the scope of the project, has returned from China with the award which they went with the support of Vodafone Turkey Foundation and Habitat Association. “XSun Team”,  consisting of Onur Ata Özyiğit and Deniz Gündeşlioğlu with team coaches Abdurrahman Gündeşlioğlu and Muhammet Yılmaz, won the third place in the world in “Junior High School” category where 56 teams competed at MakeX Robotics Competition 2018 World Finals in which 350 teams participated from 20 countries. 

Vodafone Turkey Foundation Chairman Hasan Süel has stated:

“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 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 for coding.  In the new period, our target is to reach 20.000 new children. We hit the road with Coding Tomorrow Truck to realize this target. We want to reach as many children as we can by traveling through villages and towns. On the other hand, we are pleased to see that our project started to bring results. One of our project participants, ‘XSun Team’, formed by the students of Adana Vakıfbank Middle School, made us proud by winning the third place in the world in their category at MakeX Robotics Competition 2018 World Finals, organized at China with the participation of 350 teams from 20 countries. We congratulate them and look forward to their new achievements.”

The Head of Habitat Association Chairman Sezai Hazır stated that: 

Through the “Coding Tomorrow” project, we aim to realize our transformation in informatics with children. Knowing about coding is now as important as literacy. As in all European countries, the biggest obstacle for engaging encoding to the 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. One of the participants of our project, ‘XSun Team’, has taken place in our coding training in Adana, succeeded in children’s hackathon and prepared for this competition with the help of our voluntary teachers. We hope they will achieve a bright future by working hard and systematically. We are proud that they won third place in the world by representing our country in the best way at the finals in China. I congratulate them and their teachers.”

The Manager of Vakıfbank Middle School Alper Teke stated that: 

“Our XSun Team team has advanced to the finals among 20 countries and 350 teams, and scored full in the final competitions, but won the third place in the world by seconds. I give my compliments to the teachers and students that competed on behalf of our school, and I would like to congratulate them as they represented Turkey and Adana in the best way.” 

Target: Reaching 30 thousand children

Children between 7-14 are given coding training all across Turkey with the “Coding Tomorrow” project. Led by the voluntary teachers, both theoretic and practical trainings such as introduction to programming, coding applications, creating stories and making games were given to more than 12.000 students in over 30 cities since August 2016. In the new period of the project, Coding Tomorrow Truck will travel more than 6.000 km in almost seven months to reach more than 2.500 children in over 12 cities and give coding training all over the country. The target of the project is to introduce coding to 30.000 children in 60 cities until the end of April 2019.