By coming up on this stage, I'm making the assumption that there is a fair amount of people in the audience who like coding and who believe that to be able to code is a very valuable skill. I know for sure that some of you are really passionate about sharing what you know with others. I really like programming communities, and the Ruby community in particular, in that we're pretty open and friendly to newcomers and pretty eager to share our passions and knowledge with them. I've learned a lot this way and I think that's what keeps us moving forward with great speed.
If you agree with me, then I think you'd be interested to get involved in the upcoming Europe Code Week.
The second edition of Code Week will be held this year, from the 11th to the 17th of October. It's a great initiative launched by the Neelie Kroes' Young Advisors with some involvement from the European Commission. It's about spreading the idea of coding and how great and powerful it is and about connecting people who are willing to teach, with whose who are eager to learn.
So here is how it's going to work.
People from all around Europe are encouraged to organize local coding events and workshops during the Europe Code Week in October.
The events are independent from each other. Anyone can organize an event as a part of Code Week–including you. Up until now, there are already over 400 events participating in Code Week, from all across Europe—including ones from countries like Turkey and Moldova.
The size, the format, the tools and technologies used in the events are up to you. It's preferred that the event is as beginner friendly as possible, accessible even to those with no previous programming experience. The target audience are people from all ages, with a slight preference towards students and children.
All of these are not hard requirements, though. Any event which will move you towards the goal of opening the doors to coding to more people will do.
Okay, let's say you want to get involved. What can you do? At least one of 3 things:
- First, you can help out with existing events in your country.
- Second, you can organize your own event. It's not that hard and it's extremely fun and rewarding, I assure you. Also, there is a great guide on how to organize your first event on the Code Week website.
- Third, you can help with online stuff, like gathering beginner-friendly programming resources in your country's native language or just spreading the word about the Code Week initiative as a whole.
You can start by contacting your local Code Week ambassador. Each country has at least one. They're the people responsible for encouraging local events to happen and should be in the loop of what's being planned.
You can find this talk and some links at bit.ly/barucocodeweek. Or you can just Google it.
You know, if opportunity presents itself, I'd probably join an effort to engineer a virus with the purpose of automating the spreading of the passion to code and create. Sadly, no such opportunity has presented itself—yet—so currently I strongly believe that we need to make a constant effort in helping other people see how great and powerful coding skills are.
We need to be the virus.
So let's get to work. Thank you.
- Main Code Week EU website
- Guide for organizing an event
- Events in your country
- Ambassadors from your country to get in touch with
You can always talk to me as well.