2020 Symposia Series
Coding Global was the second event of the mEducation Alliance 2020 virtual Symposia series on Play and Technology for Lifelong Learning and held on July 15, 2020. This event featured organizations working on education technology interventions that teach coding and computational thinking, particularly in low-resource settings.
The Alliance co-hosted this event with our partners of the Call for Ed Tech Responses to COVID-19, the EdTech Hub and the Global Innovation Exchange.
The first hour of this event showcased organization representatives who spoke about their specific global and/or national coding initiatives and soliciting input from a panel of respondents. The second hour was a roundtable discussion with representatives of several global organizations focused on global coding efforts. Roundtable topic discussions included: the relevance of such activities in light of COVID-19, highlighting opportunities for collaboration, and how to further democratize global and national coding efforts, particularly for lower-resource country context.
This Symposia event was part of a series of Digital Literacy Partner discussions which the Alliance will feature over the coming year.
Did you also know that July 15, 2020 was World Youth Skills Day? While the mEducation Alliance focused on one aspect of youth skills in Coding Global, the UN hosted an additional event centered around Skills for a Resilient Youth. To learn more, visit their virtual event page!
Agenda and Presenters
Hour 1: Pitch Presentations
Micro:bit is a pocket-sized computer that inspires every child to create their best digital future. By combining hardware and software technology with creative exploration, children learn through play and discovery. Originally developed in the UK as a computing learning tool for students ages 8-14, the micro:bit is now in 70 countries helping students and teachers learn coding, computational thinking and making.
inABLE utilizes computer assistive technology and training so blind and visually impaired students have opportunity to learn digital literacy and coding skills. Their work also includes advocating for the adoption of educational policy that supports the use of computer assistive technology in specials schools for the blind in Africa. They gave a presentation at the 2019 mEducation Alliance Symposium on coding labs for blind learners.
International Education Association is a global organization that plays a leading role in enabling K-12 education to prepare students to become creative, collaborative, and productive citizens that will lead future economies and societies into a better and more equitable world. They gave a presentation at the 2019 mEducation Alliance Symposium on scaling coder-maker schools for Syrian refugees and host communities.
Ghana Code Club is an after-school program that teaches children computer programming skills. Children between ages 5-17 can join any of our Computer Science programs from Schools, Community Centers and Libraries to learn to create computer games, animations, interactive arts, websites and mobile apps.Ghana Code Club has gradually become champions for coding education in Ghana, driving results through program design and delivery, strategic industry and public partnerships, research and advocacy.
Hour 2: Coding Roundtable
This consisted of a discussion amongst coding partners working in low-resource settings, led by moderators. Below are a list of organizations and the names of their roundtable representative.
Moderators
- Anthony Bloome, Senior Technology for Development Specialist, USAID and Founder, mEducation Alliance
- Scott Isbrandt, Director of Strategic Initiatives, mEducation Alliance
Participants
- Kyle Thornton, Portfolio Manager, Cisco Foundation
- Leonardo Ortiz Villacorta, VP of International Partnerships, Code.org
- John Matogo, University Relations & Digital-Nation Africa Leader for East Africa, IBM
- Scot Osterweil, Creative Director, MIT Education Arcade
- James Aslett, International Programme Manager, Raspberry Pi Foundation
- Sunil Geness, Director of Government Relations & CSR, SAP
- Davide Storti, UNESCO Programme Specialist, UNESCO YouthMobile
