Last year it took just one month to organize 300 events for the first ever Europe Code Week. 10,000 participants of all ages in 26 European countries learned about coding at workshops and lectures organized by schools, universities and countless volunteers. This year we want to go even bigger. And we need your help to get Europe coding again from October 11 to 17, 2014.
Europe Code Week aims to celebrate coding, the art and science of talking to computers. A deeper understanding of technology is becoming the new literacy and a much needed competitive advantage of a digital Europe. Youth unemployment is rising all over the continent, yet we'll have a shortage of up to 900,000 ICT jobs by 2015.
That's why we want to inspire European citizens of all ages to start learning the language of computers between Saturday, October 11 and Friday, October 17, 2014. And we believe you can help, regardless of whether you already know how powerful and fun coding is or whether you've never written a line of code yourself.
- Do you have coding skills? You can help by organizing a workshop at your school, local hackspace or community center. Start a study group for your friends or family. Even if you don't consider yourself a programmer and can just teach someone the basics of HTML.
- Are you a teacher, who recognizes the importance of coding but doesn't yet have the necessary skills? Talk to your principal and colleagues about organizing a seminar or invite your students to teach you and each other!
- Are you a teacher, who's already teaching coding? Share your lessons plans, organize a workshop for your colleagues!
- Are you a computer science university? Show high schools students all the fun things that can be done with code!
- Are you a business, struggling to find technical talent? Host a beginner coding workshop, organize a fun coding challenge for students or offer sponsorship for coding events!
- Did you participate in last year's Code Week? Tell us about your event, what were the lessons learned, so they can be used to inspire others!
We also need your help with spreading the word about Europe Code Week. Share the news with your friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere under the hashtag #codeEU. Send us an email at europecodes@gmail.com if you've got a story to share, questions about organizing an event or if you want to help out.
The idea behind Europe Code Week is to connect local organizations and volunteers and to showcase existing initiatives and good practices across Europe. Code Week was started by VP Neelie Kroes' Young Advisors, who, together with other local ambassadors, want to see more of their peers actively creating, not just consuming digital content.