It was the Christmas of 2013. Richard Rolfe, the then-headteacher of Jersey’s Le Rocquier school, was recovering from his battle with cancer. As he describes it in a 2015 interview, he realized it was time to get his act together and keep his promise—the promise he made to himself if he recovered from cancer—to improve his technological skills. This desire to learn new technology skills resulted in the creation of National Coding Week a year later.1 Together with Jordan Love, a young tech entrepreneur appointed as UK’s EU Code Week Ambassador, the National Coding Week movement kicked off and later spread to other parts of the world. 2 Every year, this event is celebrated on the third week of September.
This year at BYJU’S FutureSchool, we’re celebrating National Coding Week with some of the youngest inspirational minds worldwide. They began coding at a very early age and created some stunning applications.
Read on to learn about the Star Coders at BYJU’S FutureSchool, their ideas, and the inspirations behind their creations.
Jacob, a sixth-grader in the United Kingdom, was inspired by Steve Jobs and his career in technology, which prompted him to enroll in coding classes. The Ultimate Concentration App was the result of his research and efforts. “The application was inspired by my difficulty concentrating on complex tasks. I wanted to make an app that would help others refocus and reenergize in a fun way,” Jacob explained. He collaborated with an occupational therapist to develop creative exercises that can be done quickly and easily anywhere.
“Having an amazing teacher who is inspiring and very due diligence has helped me feel confident about his progress,” Jacob’s mother said of his two years of coding classes at BYJU’s FutureSchool. “With each new class, Jacob created more complex creations,” she added.
“I discovered that Sile was interested in computers and enjoyed playing smartphone games. Why not let her develop her own game?” said Sile’s father, recounting how it all began. Sile credited her teacher Leena for successfully developing her ‘Fire, Water, and Wood’ application. “It is themed after rock, paper, scissors, but instead uses fire, wood, and water elements. For example, fire wins over wood because it burns the wood, water wins over the fire because it extinguishes the fire, and wood wins over water,” explains Sile, a fourth-grade student based in the UK, who has been learning coding for ten months.
“Punctuality, honesty, resilience, and persistence to learn to code are her strongest areas,” Sile’s teacher Leena said of her, “She’s always eager to learn more and never wastes a moment.”
On one of the days, Aarav’s mother became ill and needed to speak with a doctor via telehealth. The doctor prescribed a specific set of medications, but no one was available to pick them up from the pharmacy. This situation made him think about all the people who lived alone or didn’t have transportation to the pharmacy.
This thought prompted him to develop the Med-On-Go app. “Anyone can use the app to deliver their medication to their home. When patients receive medication, they should be able to go into the Med-on-go app, enter their information along with the prescription, and the nearest pharmacy will deliver the drug,” explains Aarav.
Raone, a U.S. resident and food lover, created the FoodKnot app to assist novice cooks and gastronomes prepare their meals from scratch. She hopes to build a community through this app where people can write their recipes, and exchange and refer to favorite recipes based on the meal they want to prepare. One of the application’s thoughtful features is addressing the issue of leftovers and recycling leftover food to create a new dish. Indeed, a long-term thought.
Raone, a participant in the 18 under 18 Fellowship program, described how her coding teacher assisted her in learning and applying her acquired knowledge, challenged her with various problems that made her improve every time, and inspired her to pursue coding as a career in the future.
“I want to be a doctor, and I think knowing technology and how it works will be beneficial,” Isabella says. This Australian second grader created the Eat Safe application, which provides information about common food allergens and links to safe food products for that food allergy. Isabella has food allergies and understands how difficult it is for such families to go grocery shopping. This observation prompted her to develop Eat Safe app to help families navigate safe food for food allergies.
She attributes her entire achievement to her coding instructor, who has been patient with her and taught her how to learn and apply every code. “When a code works, her smile and joy say everything. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with her,” says Rovina, her BYJU FutureSchool coding instructor.
It’s inspiring to see how these young students at BYJU’s FutureSchool took up coding classes and created something so thoughtful yet useful in such a short period of time. The joy of learning on a child’s face is priceless to both a teacher and a parent. We are extremely proud of all these shining star coders who will be the future changemakers. Code away!
This Coding Week, take up a coding class or share your coding knowledge with others. Running short of Coding Week ideas? Navigate BYJU’S FutureSchool blog to know more about the history of coding, coding week, and much more.
References:
- Sofer, D. (n.d.). An interview with Richard Rolfe from coding week. https://in.element14.com/. https://in.element14.com/richard-rolfe-national-coding-week-interview
- National Coding Week 2022: History, Significance and Activities – Merazone.com. (n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2022, from https://www.merazone.com/2022/08/national-coding-week-2022-history.html
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