Ideon Coder Kids 2022
Since 2017, Ideon Science Park organises the popular event Ideon Coder Kids during a full day in the autumn holidays, as part of Lund municipality’s free school activities. Since the start, 450 kids has participated in Ideon Coder Kids. During a full day, children get to try out various programming activities, aimed at both beginners and more experienced coders. Every year, Ideon coaches about 120 children during the event and creates gateways for further activities in, for example, Coder Dojo with the great interest that is aroused.
Ideon Coder Kids is carried out in close cooperation with companies and organizations such as Axis Communications, Arm, Volvo Cars, Bosch, Sony, Qlik, Handelsbanken, UniverKids and LTH. Participating partners sponsor with code mentors, loan computers, program content and meals for the children during the day. The event consists of different classrooms with varying program content to meet the different programming levels of the children. Children are supported based on their own experiences and individual needs. Emphasis is placed on making it possible and inclusive for all children to participate, regardless of gender or culture. The aim of Ideon Coder Kids is to awaken the desire for coding and digital creation in children and young people and give them the drive to want to continue developing.
“It’s a great way to inspire young people and to show that programming is a creative way to express yourself. It’s also useful for us mentors to challenge ourselves and network with other Ideon companies.”
Robert Storlind, Bosch
Ideon Coder Kids is aimed at children aged 8-15. The children are divided into two age groups: 8-12 years and 13-15 years. In the younger group we have an even gender distribution of about 50% boys and 50% girls. But there is a drastic change in the older group, 13-15 years, where only a few girls participate, as few as about 5% girls against 95% boys. This year, Ideon has therefore formed a partnership with D-Chip, an association for girls and non-binary students studying Computer Science and InfoCom at LTH. They are working to increase well-being and cooperation among girls and non-binary students and will this year hold a girls’ group for 13-15 year olds together with Bosch.
“This year we are in charge of the girls’ group and we think it’s important to show that engineers are ‘just’ people. We hope that our engineers who are girls can be role models for the next generation of smart and creative developers.”
Robert Storlind, Bosch
“With programming as a tool, you can turn ideas into reality. It’s for anyone who likes to think logically and find creative solutions to problems, regardless of gender, age or background.”
Klara Tjernström, D-Chip
New for this year is also a group in English, this to include more children to learn. Ideon has therefore forged another partnership with UniverKids, one of Ideon’s incubator companies that is working to offer children ways to learn to code in their language. UniverKids will therefore be running the English group for children aged 8-15 this year. Ideon is also collaborating with LTH and Lund University, which means that the activity will be held at LTH’s premises in Lund.
“We want to show students, schools and the public that we support your initiative to get more people interested in technology and science. It is also important for us to be involved to show that we want as many school students as possible to have the chance to learn about and become interested in coding so that they can later make a well thought-out choice for their secondary school studies that will make them eligible to apply to our courses in due course. We want to help create the conditions for more people from uneducated homes to dare to go to university.”
Maria Ranefalk, LTH
The need for skills supply in tech is great. The tech industry can no longer be seen as a separate sector, but is now part of all industries. This means that the need for developers is not exclusive to IT companies, but all kinds of companies are in demand of these skills. At the same time, there is a shortage of developers, as several reports in recent years have shown. 70,000 positions, mostly programmers, are expected to be missing in Sweden by 2024, according to IT&telekomföretagen. In order to ensure innovation as well as growth in Sweden, efforts to meet the skills supply need to be met.
“At Ideon, we work to ensure that young people are inspired to choose technology education and jobs later in life. Ideon Coder Kids is just one of the initiatives that Ideon is doing to encourage interest in more future coders. We’ve learned a lot over the years working with Ideon Coder Kids and have developed the concept as we go. Now we have also initiated a dialogue with Malmö University, which wants to participate and which will enable us to organize Ideon Coder Kids in Malmö next year.”
