Africa Code Week comes to Cape Town
As part of the Africa Code Week initiative, the Cape Town Science Centre has set an ambitious target of training 1,500 children to code during the upcoming school holidays.
The centre intends to achieve this goal by offering free coding workshops to children between the ages of 8 and 12 years old, from the 1st to 10th of October 2015. Individuals, families, schools, NPO’s and organisations working with children are urged to take up this opportunity and make a booking in order to enrich the lives of young children.
Children will be trained using Scratch, which is a freely available software application that is fast, fun and an easy way to get started in computer science. Specialist volunteers from SAP offices across the globe are helping to make this possible by joining the team at the Centre to train children during Africa Code Week.
With the recent launch of the Western Cape’s e-Strategy, MEC for Education in the Province Debbie Schäfer, has come on board as a Patron of Africa Code Week and says “ICT is no longer part of our future – it is our present. In education, it is our responsibility to equip our children to be active citizens in our economy, and provide much-needed skills. There is a great need in South Africa for IT professionals. Africa Code Week assists in promoting this as a possible future career for our learners. It also promotes issues such as critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork, all of which are crucial for success in life. I am thus very pleased and honoured to be the Patron of Africa Code Week in Cape Town and hope that many of our learners will take part in it.”
The target in this first year of Africa Code Week is to engage 20000 individuals in coding activities across 17 African countries.
In addition to the Cape Town Science Centre’s efforts, other Cape Town organisations have embraced the initiative and are set to create a ‘coding buzz’ by organising a host of coding activities across the city. Those interested in attending these activities can visit the Africa Code Week website and specifically the ‘live’ Map, which plots the events taking place in Cape Town, and indeed across Africa.
In addition to these free Scratch coding workshops at the Cape Town Science Centre, the centre is hosting a number of other activities, which include free coding workshops for teens and teachers and two Festival of Code days on the 3rd and the 10th of October, where entry to the Cape Town Science Centre has been reduced to R5 or 5 empty cool-drink cans (for recycling) per person on these two days.
To book for the workshops or to learn more about activities on offer at the CTSC call (021) 300-3200 or e-mail info@ctsc.org.za.
Activities are also listed on the website www.ctsc.org.za.