Ideon Coder Kids is finished for 2022. And what a success this year was! A full day, during the autumn break for kids between 8-15 years old where they get the opportunity to gain new or sharpen already existing skills in coding. The event wouldn’t be possible without great coaches from Arm, Qlik, Bosch, Handelsbanken, Sony, Axis Communications, UniverKids AB, Volvo Cars and Vattenhallen Science Center.
In previous years Coder Kids events it’s always been easy to find kids who wish to participate and the spots fill up in just a few weeks. This is something that we are very proud of. But the downside has always been that not enough girls were able to be recruited in the older groups. This year we knew we needed to direct our focus on this issue and solve it, and that we did. In the younger groups ( 8-12 ) we have, since the start, had almost always 50/50 girls and boys but when the kids get older the distribution has changed drastically where only approximately 3% have been girls in the older groups (12-15).
This year we initiated a new collaboration with LTH (Lund Tekniska Högskola). This initiative also included a collaboration with D-ship, an association for girls and non-binary students studying Computer Science and InfoCom at LTH. Members of D-ship attended Ideon Coder Kids this year to coach and inspire the older participating girls. Together with D-ship we created a group for the older girls where they could get inspired by, be coached by and learn from each other.
So did these efforts achieve results?
The initiatives of this years Ideon Coder Kids delivered marvellous results. In total, participation has increased by 70% since last year! Participation among boys has increased 57%, and maybe most important of all, participation among girls has increased 100%.
Another initiative for this year was to include a class for English-speaking kids. The startup company UniverKids took on this class since they already work with educating kids in programming in different languages. This class was also a great success and the spots filled up quickly. We are so happy to have succeeded in giving English-speaking kids the chance to also learn how to code.
With 150 kids, 40 coaches and classes, we executed one of our favourite events together with some of Ideons coolest companies and the results of this year motivates us even more to continue this important work to inspire talents early on to later choose an education within tech and programming. We are now looking forward to expanding this event to Malmö in 2023.
Huge thanks to our companies who are engaged year after year and keep doing a fantastic job with these kids!
