By Maarten Magits,
volunteer at CoderDojo Klein-Brabant and youngest member (17) of the Belgian delegation.
Saturday morning, after a quick breakfast, we headed to the Newpark
Hotel where DojoCon2018 would take place. Every visitor/delegate got a usb to
lightning cable and a goodie bag upon registering to the venue and had the
opportunity to check out the different information stands filled with even more
brochures and goodies.
Friday the 19th of October, I had that date noted in my
calendar for quite a while. Together with 14 other volunteers, I was part of
the Belgian delegation at the global DojoCon2018 in Kilkenny, Ireland. Due to
unforeseen circumstances (read as: car rental issues, driving on the left,
etc.), we missed the opening and introduction on Friday night but that gave us
the opportunity to have a good night of sleep to prepare for all the sessions,
discussions and lectures on Saturday.
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| Maarten at DojoCon International |
At 10 o’clock the opening speech started and both the people from
CoderDojo Kilkenny and the CoderDojo Foundation took the stage to welcome everyone
and give out the general information about the further development of the day.
They also talked about the changes that are happening / have happened to the
global CoderDojo platform. Afterwards, an 18 year old entrepreneur took over
and taught us all about the importance of the new generation and about how he
wants to redefine the word entrepreneur.
After his speech, the actual
sessions, discussions and lectures started. There were 32 different sessions to
attend from “how to build an APP” to “starting and maintaining a dojo”.
Throughout the day, our group split up to attend as many sessions as possible
which gave us the opportunity to talk about the sessions we attended over lunch
and dinner.
After six sessions it was time for the closing ceremony but it didn’t
stop there! All the DojoCon2018 attendees were invited to a local pub to
further discuss interesting topics, get to know volunteers from all over the
world or to just have a drink J . On Sunday, a hackathon about cyber security titled:
“Can you rob a bank?” was organised for everyone, young or old, experienced or
amateur. Unfortunately though, our group was not able to attend the hackathon
as we had to leave early – and I mean reeeeaaaallyyy early – to catch our
flight back to Brussels. I can ensure you that there were some tired faces but
I can also tell you that we are excited. We are excited to share all the
information, tips&tricks and projects with you! You probably have seen the
invitation for DojoConBelgium2018 in Kortrijk on the 17th of
November already. Multiple people from our delegation (including me) will be
there to host sessions about things we learned in Ireland mixed with our own
ideas and opinions. So do not hesitate: register yourself for the event and
spread the word. (disclaimer: Due to some delays, this article appeared after DojoCon Belgium 2018.)
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| The Belgian delegation |
I hope to see you in Kortrijk!
Maarten
Special thanks to: The Belgian delegation (An Van Laer, Filip Smets,
Gunay Yürtsever, Karel Titeca, Lisianne Bosmans, Nick Boucart, Pieter Jan Put,
Sébastien Bertrand, Steven Leeman, Valérie Gillon, Nicolas Marique, Bart Degroote, Els De
Clercq, Noël Van Damme)
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