Vodafone Will Give Coding Training to 500 Children in Konya Through the “Coding Tomorrow” Project.

Within the scope of the ”Coding Tomorrow” project, carried out with the cooperation of Vodafone Turkey Foundation and Habitat Association with the aim of training a digital-future-ready generation, the coding trainings in Konya, which started in September last year and reached 120 children so far, continues with new training programs.

The president of Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology Commission and AK Party Konya deputy Ziya Altunyaldız attended the trainings, in which 20 children between the 7 and 14 years of age in Konya had an idea about programming and made efforts to reveal their creativity.

Within the scope of “Coding Tomorrow” project, a total of 500 children will be given coding training, and with Konya, totally 2.300 children will be reached in the Central Anatolia Region.

With the goal of pioneering the social change and development, Vodafone Turkey Foundation continues to give coding trainings that are started in Konya in September, within the scope of the “Coding Tomorrow” project carried out with the cooperation of Habitat Association with the aim of training a digital-future-ready generation.

In the trainings, which hosted the president of Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology Commission and AK Party Konya deputy Ziya Altunyaldız, and Vodafone Turkey CEO Colman Deegan, 20 children between the 7 and 14 years of age were introduced with coding. Children from Konya had an idea about programming and made efforts to reveal their creativity.

Up to now 120 children were reached in Konya with the “Coding Tomorrow” project, and it is aimed to give coding training to 500 children with 5 trainers in 6 months. Thus, together with Konya, a total of 2,300 children will be reached in the Central Anatolia Region.

The president of Industry, Trade, Energy, Natural Resources, Information and Technology Commission and AK Party Konya deputy Ziya Altunyaldız stated:

“Children are our future and the future will be built by technology and coding training. What we need to focus on now is to bring people into a situation that has the abilities to produce technology. For this, it is best to start at age s of 3 or 5. As the twig is bent so is the tree inclined. If you do not know coding, there’s no way you can access and meet with today’s technology. Coding is the alphabet of the technology. If we want to be a country that produces technology, we should give coding training to our children from the early ages. So, the will ‘code tomorrow’, as mentioned in the name of the project. Now the whole world is gathering in a network. The main attractor of this network is digitalization, and digitalization means coding, it is the software in other words. Today, a huge network surrounds 51 billion hectares. 15 billion device and 4 billion people are being tried to be integrated through Internet of Things. We are moving quickly towards an era in which people and things can talk to each other. Artificial Intelligence is developing to a level that exceeds the human intelligence. It is said that at least 65 percent of the Generation Z will have new jobs. At least 45 percent of today’s business will be done by robots. Then it’s time for coding tomorrow. ‘Coding Tomorrow’ program is extremely valuable in this sense. It is targeted to reach 100 thousand children nationwide. I wholeheartedly thank all volunteers, our schools and Vodafone Turkey Foundation.”

Vodafone Turkey CEO Colman Deegan said:

“The language of the digital world is coding. When all our children start coding, Turkey will be digitalized. The spread of coding will also encourage domestic software production. Thus, Turkey will have generations not only consuming technology but also producing it. It is our duty to prepare the children for the future. That’s why we attach great importance to the ‘Coding Tomorrow’ project. We have reached over 12 thousand children in 30 cities in 2 years. In the coming period we will reach 20 thousand more children.”

20 thousand more children will be given coding training

Children between 7-14 are being trained in coding all across Turkey with “Coding Tomorrow” project that Vodafone Turkey Foundation carries out in cooperation with Habitat Association to raise children’s awareness about coding. More than 12.000 children in 30 provinces are reached from August 2016. Within the scope of the “Coding Tomorrow” project, which is celebrating its third year, 20 thousand more children will be given coding training. Coding Tomorrow Training Truck, prepared by Vodafone Turkey Foundation and Habitat Association in order to bring coding training to all over the country, will reach 5 thousand children in 12 provinces in about 7 months. Thus, more than 30,000 children from 60 provinces will be introduced with coding by the end of April 2019.

Scratch program is being used

Within the scope of “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. Developed for children by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the best technical university in the world, the basic coding program Scratch is being used in the training.

“Coding Tomorrow” set an example to the world

“Coding Tomorrow” is featured in Vodafone Group’s “Connected Education” report as a success story, and has set an example to the world in digital literacy with its sustainable education model. “Connected Education” report presents the initiatives led by Vodafone in an effort to facilitate digitization in education across the world, and covers 14 different initiatives under 4 main themes, that are “Access to Online Education Platforms/Apps”, “Digital Literacy Education”, “Educating the Educators”, and “Education In Refugee Camps”. With the spread of the digital initiatives that are mentioned in the “Connected Education” report in countries and markets in which Vodafone operates, it will be possible to reach more than 85 million people by the year 2025, and to achieve an annual economic benefit of 7,3 billion dollars.

Future jobs will be based on coding

As the “language” of the digital world, coding improves children’s creativity and teaches them innovative thinking. 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 utopian-sounding jobs will have places in corporations in 20 years, and they will all be based on coding.