Code Week: campaign to encourage learning programming

From 11 to 17 October, it’s Code Week! During Code Week, pupils and teachers in primary and secondary schools across the Netherlands are being encouraged to get working with computer code.

Learning to program is vital for the future

Code Week is part of Europe Digital Agenda

Dutch Code Week is part Europe Code Week, an initiative by European Commissioner Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and her Young Advisors, in tandem with the European eSkills for Jobs campaign. In the Netherlands, Code Week is being organised by Kennisnet and ECP in association with the European Commission and a large number of companies and schools. Details of Dutch Code Week are available at codeweek.nl, including a full list of Code Week activities.

SIDN and Code Week

Following on from our involvement in Digivaardig & Digiveilig, in April we took part in DigiDuck, a special themed edition of Donald Duck, entirely devoted to programming. DigiDuck was launched at a festive event on 29 April, which featured a presentation to Minister Jet Bussemaker. The Dutch business community has a strong interest in the Netherlands maintaining high levels of ICT and programming knowledge. In children being introduced to ICT early in life and getting to see what a fun subject it can be. In more people opting for a career in ICT. That is why SIDN is supporting Code Week.

Kick-off at NEMO

Code Week kicks off on Friday 10 October at NEMO (Amsterdam). At the gathering, SIDN’s CEO Roelof Meijer and the heads of several other organisations (Daniel Ropers of Bol.com, Baptiest Coopmans of UPC and Marcel Timmer, Director of Experience (DX) at Microsoft NL) will all give their backing to the statement “Learning to program is vital for the future!”. Roelof Meijer will also be explaining the importance of programming skills for employers and for the future of the Dutch and European economies.

BendooBox

Another highlight of the kick-off will be the presentation of BendooBox by Ramon Wieleman of Reshift Digital. BendooBox is a package that helps children take their first steps in the world of programming, using a Raspberry Pi and Scratch. SIDN is one of the organisations whose support has made the realisation of BendooBox possible. If you’d like to know more about BendooBox, check out this YouTube clip about the BendooBox.