Morethan 80 young coders celebrated their achievements at a recent awards ceremony in Belfast Metropolitan College.
The CoderDojo programme awarded their 150th belt at the ceremony attended by CoderDojo Belfast young coders, their parents and representatives from those who support the group.
The movement, founded in April 2012 by Belfast Metropolitan College in association with Momentum, is orientated around running free not-for-profit coding clubs which teach young people to learn how to write computer code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and more.
Its aim is to make development and coding fun and tries to make coding a sociable and rewarding experience which will hopefully encourage young people to pursue a career in ICT.
To date over 220 children aged 6-16 have been involved in CoderDojo Belfast with over 150 belts awarded to acknowledge the achievement of them learning new skills and assisting others in various technologies.
Justin Edwards, Director of Curriculum and Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Belfast Metropolitan College, said: “The College embarked on the CoderDojo as an initiative to promote and encourage software engineering from an early age. The initiative has been more successful than we could have imagined and this is down to the support from industry, volunteer staff from our own college and, of course, parents. We hope to develop the initiative further, helping create the programmers and imagineers of tomorrow.”
After congratulating all entrants and presenting the top prizes John Healy from sponsor, Citi said: “Citi is delighted to be part of the CoderDojo initiative. It is a really great way to get the innovators of tomorrow engaged in technology today.”
For further information on CoderDojo Belfast visit www.coderdojobelfast.com or on twitter @CoderDojoBMC.