Celebrating 6 years of CoderDojo

Six years ago today, July 23rd, the first ever CoderDojo session was held by James Whelton and Bill Liao at the National Software Centre in Co. Cork, Ireland. Since then the CoderDojo Movement has come a long way thanks to amazing volunteers and supporters around the world who have a passion for enabling young people, in their local area and beyond, to become tech creators.

Why not try out some of the fun birthday resources below at your Dojo to celebrate?

1) App Inventor

What’s a birthday without balloons? In this special birthday challenge you will get to build an Android app with lots of balloons, and learn how to do some basic animation in App Inventor too!

Ciara, Content creator at the CoderDojo Foundation notes “There are so many ways you can add to the game too, I hope you have as much fun with it as I did!”

2) Scratch

Philip, our Content Lead also developed a Birthday themed Scratch Challenge Card where ninjas build a game with different levels of difficulty that throws birthday cake at a robot!

3) Github watermark generator

Sriram, a mentor at Coimbatore Dojo, India developed a CoderDojo Birthday watermark generator, so all our Community can show their excitement about CoderDojo’s Birthday on their social media profile images! Try it out here and share your with us on our forums or by tagging @CoderDojo on Facebook or Twitter. It is open source, so you can even copy and edit the code to make your own one at your Dojo!

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James and Bill’s dedication to inclusiveness and foresight, to make the model open source, has enabled the movement to grow exponentially. Since that first Dojo, the movement has become truly global with more than 1,320 Dojos in 75 countries around the world.

While all the Dojos run independently in 75 different countries globally, they all have one thing in common and that’s encouraging young people between 7 and 17 years old to learn how to code in a fun, free and inclusive space.

This birthday would not have been reached without the Champions, Mentors and other volunteers who are the backbone of CoderDojo. We hope, with all your help, to continue to inspire young coders at their local Dojo.

If you would like to start a fun, inclusive coding club for 7-17 year olds in your local area, you can find out more about setting up a Dojo in your local area here.