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During Ada Lovelace‘s 200th anniversary Norway led the way with a groundbreaking coding session for hundreds of school girls.
Over 200 girls descended upon the Deichmanske, Oslo’s public library, for a packed day of coding.GirlsTechFest took place on the 200th anniversary of Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer and was part of Oslo Innovation Week, a festival of innovative ideas now in its 10th year. The girls spent the day learning about the basics behind coding and were encouraged to think about careers in tech in the future.
The normally studious library environment was transformed into a hive of activity with the girls quickly turning their hand to coding. Using tablet computers, the girls received a diploma for their first hour of coding with Scratch, a language and community for creating games, animations and more.
Scratch was developed by MIT, and is available to use for free. The organizers hope the girls will continue to learn online and make technology part of their future careers.
The event attracted attention from Norway’s Royal Family, with Crown Prince Haakon as the guest of honour. Crown Prince Haakon has been seen at events across Oslo Innovation Week and is a champion for Norway’s digital businesses which include the Opera Browser and Kahoot, one of the fastest-growing education technology platforms in the world.Secondary schoolchildren across Norway will receive coding classes from next year, with the aim oattracting more women into the tech sector.
Find out more about Norway’s plans to get schoolchildren coding at IKT Norge.
This article was originally posted by Alex Wood at The Memo.
