Events fall 2019

This fall was packed with CoderDojo events! The buzzy bees among you could really fill up their agendas with coding related events. Next to hundreds of CoderDojos organized by the different coding clubs throughout the country, there were some special events for the community to enjoy.

CoderDojo4Divas (19/10/2019)

On Saturday 19 October a band of coding girls took over the Permeke library in Antwerpen for their yearly coding event CoderDojo4Divas. They do that every year to show to the world that girls who code are cool.

This year CoderDojo4Divas took us all the way to space as the event was galaxy themed to commemorate all the women who played a crucial part in the American Space program. Over 80 girls took on the challenge to code a Mars rover, space invaders or their own rocket control panel.

Check out our cool aftermovie to experience to divas atmosphere yourself.

So much coolness, that had to attract some attention. ATV, the television station of Antwerp payed us a visit and made this awesome video about it.

We were very glad that Sandy, our CoderDojo4Divas founder and early CoderDojo fan was able to visit our event. Unfortunately, some weeks ago she lost her battle against cancer. Therefore, the organisation has decided to rename our event in honour of Sandy. As of next year, we will welcome all girls to our new event Sandy4Divas. See you all in October!

Cool Girls Code (19/10/2019)

For the second year in a row, our team in Wallonia organised their very own coding event for girls. This year’s Cool Girls Code was an amazing success with over 50 participants getting together at the Leansquare coworking hub in Liège. The room was full of coding, laughter and a very cool vibe.

You don’t believe us? Just check out this aftermovie!

DojoCon Belgium (30/11/2019)

From all corners of the country, CoderDojo volunteers gathered at Wavre for our yearly DojoCon. It was the first time this event crossed the language border and with more than 150 volunteers registered, the event was full up!

Jonathan Berte, our first keynote speaker

This year we didn’t have one but two key note speakers. First up was Jonathan Berte who, as CEO of Robovision, took us on a trip to the wonderful world of AI. He encouraged our dojos to start experimenting with AI today as it is more accessible than ever.

After the coffee, Gerrie Smits climbed the stage. Gerrie is the writer of a book called Blockhains is WTF and he came to tell us what he meant by that. After the crash of the Bitcoin, blockchain was left in the shades and Gerrie gave us a completely different light on the matter.

After the tremendous success of last year’s breakout sessions, we’ve had another set of excellent sessions lined up for this year. Participants could dive into one of our technical workshops, listen to a talk by one of our volunteers or join a discussion on a CoderDojo related topic. Eye catchers were Mauro and Wout who did a talk about their warmhearted inventions they made for Clinimakers and Nicola and Amy from the CoderDojo foundation who came all the way from Dublin to enjoy DojoCon with us.

At the end of the day, everyone went home with a belly full of titbits and a head full of knowledge. We think it is safe to say that DojoCon this year was a tremendous success. See you all next year?

Boot camps (November-December 2019)

Because of popular demand, we organised the CoderDojo boot camps again this year. Participants could choose between 5 different boot camps. We had the introduction into CoderDojo tracks where we submerged you into the world of CoderDojo with a strong basis of didactical skills, coding in Scratch and working with a Micro:bit.

Our seasoned coaches could follow a boot camp introducing them into mBot or Arduino. Those who wanted to go the extra mile could subscribe for the Scratch advanced or Micro:bit advanced bootcamps.

Alexandre teaching a boot camp

All participants were greeted by our enthusiastic instructor Alexandre Doyen who transformed our workshops room into a real CoderDojo coaches school. For every boot camp, we had room for 10 padawans who wanted to improve their coaching skills.

Next year, we will try to organise more boot camps on different locations. As our survey results clearly indicated that a lot of you would fancy some extra coaching skills, we are determined to come to your aid and really get these boot camps off the ground!