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| Coderdojo session, NUI Galway |
An information
and registration event for both young people and parents interested in having
their children learn computer coding will take place from 2pm-3pm in the Insight Centre for Data Analytics in the Dangan Business Park, NUI Galway.
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| Coderdojo session, NUI Galway |
The event
will introduce attendees to the programming and electronics courses being
provided in a relaxed social environment from mid October by Coderdojo,
Ireland’s fastest growing youth movement. Sessions will be held in the IT Building and at Insight in the university. At a dojo (Japanese term for training centre), young people between the
ages of five and seventeen learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs
and games. Dojos are set up, managed and taught by volunteers. The first
Coderdojo was established in Cork in June 2011 by James Whelton and Bill Liao.
Since then it has become an Irish technology export success story active in
forty-three countries.
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| Coderdojo session, NUI Galway |
According
to Brendan Smith, one of Coderdojo Galway’s co-founders, “There is a real appetite amongst our young people to learn how to
code. They want to move on from playing computer games to making their own
versions. This is shown by the fact that every
Saturday, in towns across
Galway including Athenry, Clifden, Eyrecourt, Kinvara, Loughrea, Mountbellew
and Tuam as well as in NUI Galway, hundreds of
enthusiastic children and teenagers create their very own games, digital
stories and web applications facilitated by volunteer Coderdojo mentors.
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| Coderdojo session, NUI Galway |
The language used for beginners to coding is Scratch. Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Scratch is the most popular computer language for young people
worldwide, being a significant catalyst in the huge uptake in coding across the
world over the last few years. It has a cross-disciplinary ethos and structure that
combines mathematics with elements of arts, engineering and personal
development. So we are using this opportunity to encourage our young coders or
‘ninjas’ to showcase their projects to the general public.”
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| Computer Coding class in Galway Primary School, mentored by Insight volunteer |
Brendan
goes on to say that “Coding is the new literacy of the 21st century.
It will be as important for our children to learn how to programme as it is how
to read and to write. It is the foundation stone on which the modern technology
age is being built. Hence for Ireland to develop a sustainable knowledge economy
and society, it is vital that we harness the creativity of our youth to
innovate the beneficial products and processes that the world needs. Thankfully
there is at present a convergence of a diverse range of digital initiatives happening
in this region that could transform Galway into becoming the Youth Coding Capital
of Ireland and indeed of Europe. The
success can be demonstrated by the fact that during the inaugural Europe Coding
Week held last November, not only was Ireland the most active country but Galway
city and county hosted the highest concentration of events of any location in Europe.
The region
has elements that could allow it to become known as the ‘Silicon Galway Bay’, a
European version of California’s Silicon Valley. Many of the world’s leading corporations in the
biomedical and information technology sectors such as Avaya, Boston Scientific,
Cisco, Electronic Arts, Hewlett-Packard, Medtronic and SAP, are already based
here. These industries have developed links to research centres located in GMIT
and NUIG such as Insight, Ryan and REMEDI which are providing the scientific
expertise to sustain their presence in Galway and underpin their status as
leaders in cutting edge product development. Insight at NUI Galway for
instance is part of a cross Ireland university research centre designed to
provide a national ICT research platform based on world-class research programmes
that will serve as a global beacon for the science and application of Big Data
Analytics.
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| Digital Female Solidarity: 'Rail Girls' workshop Insight NUI Galway June 2014 |
There is also the presence
locally of Irish-owned high tech manufacturing and services industries such as
Creganna and Storm Technologies. But we can be even better than Silicon Valley in many
respects. For whilst the San Francisco Bay area is the world’s premier
powerhouse of leading edge industries, technological innovation and research,
nevertheless there are serious social and economic problems that manifests itself in a high income
disparity, a disconnect between businesses and local communities as well a low
percentage of quality opportunities available for the indigenous population
with approximately 50% of the jobs in the high tech sector being taken by
people from outside the United States. Yet Galway has traditions and characteristics
that, supported by new government education policies, should ensure that our
local school-going populations and communities secure the maximum benefit vis-à-vis
employment and services.
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| 091 Labs stand at the Galway Science & Technology Festival, NUI Galway |
Key to this development is the teaching of coding to
our young people in schools and clubs, which is happening at a higher level here
than anywhere else in Ireland thanks to the volunteerism and deep sense of
‘community solidarity’ that is such a strong feature of Galway society.
This is
epitomized by the actions of the prime ‘movers and shakers’ in the industrial,
political, educational and local government sectors who have over the years
collaborated under the auspices of the Galway Education Centre, Junior
Achievement and the Galway Science and Technology Festival, to deliver
important learning initiatives in schools and colleges across the Western
region.
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| Computer Coding class in Mayo Post-Primary School, mentored by Insight volunteer |
Modern version of Meitheal reaching into schools
In a modern industrial
urban version of ‘Meitheal’ that was once the hallmark of traditional Irish
rural community support, these visionaries have promoted and harnessed an army
of young professional mentors from industry and third level colleges who give
their time and energies to teach in primary and post-primary classrooms
delivering science courses whilst acting as positive ‘role models’ for our
young generation.
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| School Mentors, Hewlett Packard |
Over the last
year, volunteer tutors from Hewlett
Packard, GMIT and NUI Galway have worked together to coordinate
the delivery of computer programming courses to thousands of pupils and
students in over sixty primary and post-primary schools across counties Mayo,
Westmeath and Galway.
Local young
people’s clubs such as ‘091 Labs’ and the Coderdojos are providing informal after-school digital makers’
environments.
Ciaran Cannon TD for
east Galway and former Minister of State at the Dept of Education has taken a very
pro-active ‘hand-ons’ approach in promoting digital creativity in schools and amongst
communities. Government educational reform has ensured that five decades after
the tentative introduction of computing into Irish schools, coding will soon become
part of the national post-primary curriculum at junior cycle level. We are therefore witnessing the birth of
the first generation of Irish children that can code, people who are truly
‘digital creators’ rather than just passive ‘digital users’.
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| Bernard Kirk(director of Galway Education Centre; Dáire Smith (Coláiste Iognáid); Brendan Smith (Insight & Coderdojo) & Ciaran Cannon TD) |
There is a vibrant digital buzz about Galway that is
found no where else in Ireland which also finds expression not just through
youth-based coding clubs, high tech manufacturing sector; business associations
such as ITAG; presence of world renowned IT research third level institutes but
also through perpetual trophies such as ‘John
Cunningham Memorial Coderdojo Awards’; the annual ‘Rails Girls’ conference which highlights the role of women
in technology; and the popularity of the NUIG-based ‘Computer and
Communications Museum of Ireland’ which give due recognition to the strong
historical connections of Galway with the origins of the global village and its
five decades long associations with leading edge computing.”
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| Computer & Communications Museum of Ireland, Insight NUI Galway |
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