CoderDojo co-founder James Whelton
Teenage coder and entrepreneur James Whelton talks about the impact of CoderDojo and how it is going international. The coding movement has spawned a massive following, a big waiting list and many more are on the way across Ireland, the UK and very soon, the US.
At GIG 2012, programmer Whelton revealed the growing impact of CoderDojo amongst Irish schoolkids and how the movement is going international, with events happening in London, mainland Europe and very soon San Francisco and New York.
The CoderDojo movement, founded by Whelton and entrepreneur Bill Liao, has become a truly national phenomenon in Ireland and within just eight months there are 12 Dojos with six more in the pipeline around the country. Some 600 kids are coding weekly now in Ireland.
Whelton only did his Leaving Cert last summer and is already up and running with his own software company Disruptive Development.
Whelton pointed to the ambition of many young CoderDojo enthusiasts to create video games of their own and are inspired by the example of Harry Moran from Cork, who at 12 became the world’s youngest Mac app developer.
He explained that regions of Ireland are demonstrating interesting traits – Cork has an intense focus on JavaScript, in Kerry one Dojo-goer has mashed Pac-Man with Portal while in Donegal, a quarter of the island of Arranmore’s population turned up to attend the CoderDojo there.
