Awesome Community Highlights 2016

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screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-13-25-562016 is coming to an end and what a year it has been. Yes, a year that can be considered by many to be of questionable, turbulent and ever increasingly controversial times in areas such as politics, economics, and global affairs. However, in our world of CoderDojo, a world filled with champions, mentors, volunteers, ninjas, tech evangelists, partners, speakers, supporters and all the other downright amazingly ‘cool’ people within the movement, we have seen a year of growth, a year of scaling, a year of, let’s just say it…sublime ‘awesomeness’ within our community.

 

Some of the ‘awesomeness’ I saw this year…

 

Regional Bodies are born!

Communities of Dojos have come together in multiple areas of the world and have created full-fledged bodies. Regionalisation has been a great success where Dojos and partners come together and form their own entities to grow and support CoderDojo in their regions. Formed by the community, lead by the community for the community. (It’s awesome!) I have had the pleasure of working with CoderDojo Japan, CoderDojo WA, CoderDojo Indiana, CoderDojo WestSound, CoderDojo Ireland and the newly formed CoderDojo NSW. My colleague Pete, in addition, has helped form bodies in other regions in Europe. Learn more about regionalisation here →

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Some of our regional bodies.

 

DojoCon Japan

This year in 2016 we have seen an array (hehe array) of events within the community. In particular, we have seen DojoCon being hosted on a regional basis. One such regional DojoCon I had the opportunity of attending and speaking at was ‘DojoCon Japan’. DojoCon Japan was the first large event where the CoderDojo Japanese community from all over Japan came together and shared their experiences and ideas about CoderDojo. Personally, it was a fantastic experience, to physically connect with the multiple community members I have been engaging with for the past year (I miss you guys!!). At DojoCon Japan we ended the event with the official regionalisation of CoderDojo Japan with both co-founders Yohei and Takashi which for me was a highlight of the event. If DojoCon is something you are thinking of creating in your community next year, learn more here →

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DojoCon Japan – CoderDojo Japanese Community.

CoderDojo.com, Global Slack, and More

Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to engage on some technical projects. One, in particular, has been the redesign of the CoderDojo.com website also known as Cd-theme for those engaged on our GitHub. We have rolled out the first stage of the website. I have had the pleasure of collaborating with John Berry from Salesforce, some amazing developers from Riot Games and of course our wonderful technical intern Adam Horrigan. It is my vision in the new year to engage on two additional phases and roll-outs, one being a complete translation of all content currently on the CoderDojo.com website and also a downloadable theme for regional bodies. Will keep you updated on this.screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-12-38-05

screen-shot-2016-12-22-at-17-39-14In addition, I created CoderDojo Global Slack which grew far more than I expected. My expectation was 20 community members, but I am delighted to see we have over 350+ with 70% of traffic happening in just direct messaging alone, community members contacting other community members (more awesomeness!). So I have deployed a Slackin Integration so if you wish the join the conversation just sign up here →

 

Erasmus+

Lastly, I have been leading the CoderDojo Erasmus+ project for the CoderDojo Foundation in partnership with the Cork Institute of Technology, Nerve Centre, Wimi5, and IBE. As part of this project, we have created a set of text-based videos to explain a number of frequently asked questions about CoderDojo. We have recently completed all the videos and our next port of call is the translation of these videos into a number of languages. It is our intention to localize these videos once the translation is complete. You think this cool? Well, you are in luck, you can contribute to these translations and the more help we receive the faster we can localise these videos for your community. To help us on this project go here →    

 

Lastly…?

So all in all it has been a wonderful year, an awesome year full of awesomeness and I wish all the community members of CoderDojo, our partners and supporters a happy new year. I look forward to engaging with you all again in 2017! 🙂

Sláinte agus Nollaig Shona.

Ross O’Neill – Community Lead.

P.S Don’t forget to check out Pete’s community post.

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A video posted by Ross O’Neill (@ross_o_neill) on

Ross & Pete (Christmas Community Leads & A Christmasy Video of the Foundation)?

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