The sheer velocity of the CoderDojo movement is undeniable and this was apparent for all to see at the Dublin Web Summit yesterday when a group of kids showed the gathering of entrepreneurs and innovators that you can never be too young to try and put a dent in the universe.
While this may be the biggest Dublin Web Summit yet, a group of CoderDojo kids reminded thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators how a coding revolution born in Ireland has become an international phenomenon.
Shortly after CoderDojo co-founder James Whelton was honoured by becoming an Ashoka fellow, one of 3,000 gifted individuals around the world, a group of young coders who are part of the CoderDojo movement sent an earnest signal reminding many of the seasoned entrepreneurs and investors why they were into tech in the first place.
The first dojo was held in July 2011 and by the time the organisation celebrated its first birthday this year it had become an international phenomenon. There are now 104 dojos happening every Saturday afternoon (41 in Ireland) in cities from Dublin to Florence, and Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, London and Chicago. New ones are sprouting up in Jamaica and Africa. On any given Saturday, an average of 6,000 kids between the ages of seven and 17 in Ireland and around the world are teaching each other how to write code.
We spoke to Harry Moran, who at the age of 12 became the world’s youngest Mac app creator after his game PizzaBot dashed past Angry Birds last year in the Mac app charts, his brother Con, who is building a website called Crainn aimed at encouraging tree planting, Shane Curran, who did a Linux install at age 6 and whose new digital venture Libramatic.com is gaining grounds fast, and 10-year-old Alan Panayotov, who is fast becoming a top expert in Javascript.
