The "Connected Women" Project's Trainer Trainings Have Now Been Completed

Vodafone Turkey Foundation's "Coding Tomorrow" project continues to expand to the villages and towns of Turkey. Within the project implemented with the collaboration of Habitat Association and the support of the Ministry of Family, Labour, and Social Services, the next stop of the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, which set out on a journey to deliver coding training across Turkey, was the Bereketli Village in Trabzon. With the local support of the Governorship of Trabzon and the Trabzon Provincial Directorate of National Education, 150 children aged 7-14 learned coding, the language of technology, during the training held in the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck.

Working with the aim of being the pioneer of social change and development,Vodafone Turkey Foundation continues to expand the “Coding Tomorrow” project, launched to raise generations ready for the digital future, to the villages and towns of Turkey. Within the scope of the project implemented with the collaboration ofHabitat Association and the support ofthe Ministry of Family, Labour, and Social Services,Bereketli Village of Trabzon has been the next stop of the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, which set out on a journey to deliver coding training across Turkey. With the local support of the Governorship of Trabzon and Trabzon Provincial Directorate of National Education, about 150 children aged 7-14 learned coding, the language of technology, during the training held in the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck. With the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck training, the total number of children who received coding training in Trabzon has surpassed 850. Moreover, a total of 1,000 children is expected to reach with the ongoing classroom training in the province. Also, the total number of children reached across the Black Sea Region will be 1,241.

Mr. Hasan Süel: “We travel from village to village, from town to town, for equal opportunity in education, aiming to raise generations with coding skills.”

The next stop of the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck in Trabzon was Bereketli Imam Hatip Secondary School in Bereketli Village of Araklı District. Araklı District Governor V. Ömer Övünç Koşansu, Araklı Mayor Recep Çebi , Vodafone Turkey Foundation's Chair Hasan Süel, and the Chair of Habitat Association Sezai Hazır also observed the training attended by children from the surrounding villages and chatted with them.

Mentioning that they would like to have a generation that produces and does not consume, Mr. Hasan Süel added:

“Learning coding, which is accepted as the language of the digital world, is necessary to produce technology. During our coding training, our children have an idea about programming, work to bring out their creativity, create their imaginary worlds, and produce their games. We are opening the doors of innovative thinking for our children. We have been continuing our project successfully for two years. During this period, we provided coding training to over 12,000 children. In the upcoming period, we aim to reach 20,000 more. For this purpose, we set out on a journey with the Coding Tomorrow Training Truck. By traveling around from village to village and from town to town, our goal is to reach as many children as possible. As the 'Coding Tomorrow' team, we have organized training in Trabzon before. Up to the present, we have provided coding training to over 850 children in Trabzon. With our ongoing classroom training, we aim to reach a total of 1,000 children in Trabzon."

Sezai Hazır, the Chair of Habitat Association stated:

“As Habitat Association, we have been conducting activities in the development areas of social transformation and information for 20 years. We are an NGO working for sustainable development. Through the ‘Coding Tomorrow’ project, we want to implement our knowledge-driven transformation via children. Learning how to code is now as important as literacy. Just like in each European country, the most significant obstacle to implementing coding in the Turkish education system is the absence of trained educators to provide this training. Accordingly, we train youngsters within the scope of our project and they deliver their knowledge to children. With our Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, we aim to reach children who could not access technology training in the disadvantaged areas of our country."

Coding for everyone

Coding Tomorrow Training Truck will travel over 6,000 km in about seven months, reaching 2,500 children in 12 provinces. Traveling to city centers, villages, and towns in the provinces it visits, Coding Tomorrow Training Truck provides children with4-hour long training twice a day for about a week. During the training, the Scratch program, the basic coding program developed for children by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), known as the best technical university worldwide, is used.

The goal is 30,000 children

Within the “Coding Tomorrow” project, children aged 7-14 across Turkey receive coding training. During training, children received theoretical and practical training by volunteer trainers on various subjects, including the introduction to programming, application development, storytelling, and game development. The project has also reached over 12,00 children in 30 provinces since August 2016. Based on the results of the project's first year, there was an increase of 31% in children who stated "I can develop my own game using the Scratch" and 35% in those who stated, "I can develop more intricate and longer programs to solve a software issue". In the upcoming period, 20,000 more children will receive coding training. Therefore, by the end ofApril 2019, over 30,000 children in 60 provinces across Turkey will be familiarized with coding.

Upcoming: Surprise occupations

The OECD's latest report on the digital economy states that 2 out of 3 children will have jobs that are unknown today. In the future, professions such as robotic veterinarian, holoportation specialist, ethical hacker, emotion designer, knowledge mining, artificial organ fabrication, and dreams fulfillment will emerge. These coding-based professions will take their place in our lives in the next 20 years.