Last night saw the Dublin Web Summit host a special “Web Summit Schools” evening. Over 5,000 students from all over the country attended a lively and interactive evening hosted by Marcus Segal, the former COO of Zynga Games.
Coder Dojo had a huge presence at the event with a good majority of students confirming that they participated in different coding clubs all around the country. Coder Dojo is a global movement of free coding clubs for young people with a presence in 48 countries which was co-founded by entrepreneur James Whelton. James was at the event interviewing child prodigy Adora Svitak. Adora, an inspiring speaker, published her first book aged 7 and delivered a TED talk aged 12 on what adults can learn from kids.
Lauren Boyle, aged 10 from Dublin, who was recently named European digital girl of the year, was described at the event as a coding ninja. She was interviewed by Mary Moloney, Coder Dojo CEO, telling everyone at the event how much she loved coding and enjoyed setting up her own lifestyle websites which she coded using HTML and CSS. Lauren encouraged all kids to start coding because it was so much fun and allowed you to make cool things!