You may have heard of the first ever Hydrogen hack happening in the UK this summer, run by the uber cool Arcola Energy team, ahead of the launch of their education programme. The latest news is that we are ready to start filling up the centres. If you want to read all about the hack and apply, go here http://hydrogenhack.co.uk – but the basic idea is that 100 scientists and geeks aged 18 and under will come together in ten centres and use hydrogen fuel cells to make animate objects move faster and inanimate objects become mobile. Using a variety of fun technology, toys and fuel cells, this week promises to be challenging and completely new.
At the end of the week there will be a large competition between the projects at Ravensbourne College near the O2 in London, in front of a panel of distinguished judges.
If you look at the map on the website you will see where all the centres are, but we are just looking now at getting the right balance of young talent in each centre. By ‘scientist’ we mean that you have an interest in science and engineering, or of course are a flat out genius at science; by ‘geek’ we mean that you have coding/hacking skills; by ‘young’ we mean that you have to be aged 18 or under. Here is the list as of this week:
Nottingham University: we are looking for 8 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
Techniquest, Glyndwr University, Wrexham: we are looking for 7 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
Centre for Life, Newcastle: we are looking for 9 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
BOC, Guildford: we are looking for 7 young scientists, and 2 young geeks
Tettenhall College, Wolverhampton: we are looking for 6 young scientists, and 2 young geeks
Monmouth school, South Wales: we are looking for 4 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
University Technical College, Bolton: we are looking for 8 young scientists and 1 young geek
University of Sheffield: we are looking for 7 young scientists, we have enough geeks but if you are amazing, do apply!
In London we have a wealth of young scientists and very few geeks so far! Which is very odd, so please do apply if you love hacking and are happy getting to a centre in London. We are in the process of signing up more London centres as we have so many young science applicants – so there will be a number of centres to choose from.
The Festival of Code is a UK based (but open to all countries) event, run by Young Rewired State (YRS) that happens every year in late July/early August. This year it starts on the 27th July with the finale weekend happening the first weekend in August.
It is for every child aged 18 and under who has learned how to programme, to whatever degree of skill, it is free to attend and all are welcome. Really it is the graduation programme for those who have learned how to do it, but need to put their coding skills to test against real world problems, and learn how to take the next steps.
We run it with a host of voluntary people who manage local centres during the week, then the centre lead brings their YRS team to the Festival weekend, and corals them through the showcases, flash hacks and maker fair – before everyone attending the finale showcase on the Sunday with the top YRS talent presenting what they built to a panel of judges and peers.
Here is a taste of the event, recorded in our Manchester centre in 2013, probably easier to watch than read!
Our centres are the lifeblood of the event. They can be businesses, civic spaces, schools, Universities, basically anywhere with wifi and power, mentors and a person willing to be a centre lead.
This year we have already stormed away with 29 centres already signed up across the UK and Northern Ireland, have a look at the map and list here: http://festival.yrs.io/centres but with an expected 1800 young people signing up we need more and we need to cover the white bits with red Ruby bugs!
We need more centres across the UK, we will celebrate you, support you, help you and find you your local coding geniuses – but it is not a light commitment. I cannot pretend that all you need do is unlock a room and let kids in and out. Over the seven years we have been running the Festival we have learned a great number of lessons, one of which is to make sure that we have centres everywhere, but also centres who totally understand what the commitment is before they jump in.
The only thing worse than having to tell a child that they have no local centre, is telling them that their allocated centre has dropped out just before the Festival and so they cannot attend.
As a result we have published this page of information, and written up this MOU. This may seem a bit over the top for a voluntary thing, but we do not take your role lightly, and we know that the success of this depends on the willing collaboration of a huge network of centres and centre leads as partners and primaries.
But if you register to be a centre we promise you the following:
we will find your local coding youth
we will support you every step of the way
you will be able to build on the community of young people we find for you
you will be pro-actively helping the mission to give our young people a supported digital future
your mentors will be inspired by the Festival and the young people they meet through it
you will want to come back
This call, therefore, is for those who really are serious about helping this movement, who want to engage with their local coding youth and who want to be a part of the future of Digital.
To everyone, I say, please can you point people you know at these post, especially those who may be able to host kids in the areas where we currently do not have centres (the map is everything!!), thank you!
And of course, if you know of a child or group in the UK who would want to come and be a part of this, then they can sign up here, international participants can register here (it costs nothing to attend).
As we kiss goodbye to 2014, here are my top 14 things I learned this year that may be handy for me to remember and for you too, maybe! (In no order):
1. Understanding kids born in 1997 or after is hugely important
97ers (kids born in ’97 or later) left school this year with GCSEs and headed for college or apprenticeships or work. They are a significant year and I have written and spoken about them here https://mulqueeny.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/all-about-the-97ers/ I know they are significant because every time I speak about them publicly, parents of much younger children thank me for giving them some reassurance that these 97ers exist, and parents of 97ers, like myself, are relieved that their children are doing *good* things – that we will never understand.
2. Reconsider the parenting role in a digital world
My two daughters, dort 1 and dort 2 (not their real names), are now 12 and 17 – “in-between” ages where they are not babies, or toddlers, or doing GCSEs or A Levels – but they are doing great things. This year I learned to trust that they know a lot more about social digital things than I did, and I am a born and bred geek. Now I know to ask my eldest to regularly check my youngest’s activity on social sites. Also, that there is a balance of trust and knowledge that I have developed with age, and how I can use discrimination and empathy to know when I need to learn from them and when I need to guide and teach.
3. Blue-balling emotions is rubbish
The future, with children grown and gone, hovers relentlessly on the horizon and I am looking at the next stage of my life. I can literally do anything, as well as actively choose whether I want to continue this journey alone (as I ended up parenting alone, but not in a sad way), or with someone. I choose with someone – and I must value that and respect the work that takes, and give it equal value (even though it feels egotistical and unnatural for me to do this, ultimately I am allowing my children freedom and I am not blue-balling my emotions).
4. Isms
Isms in all forms have featured this year, much racism as ever with too many young people slaughtered because of race and lots of people because of belief. I find that Buddhism and a Buddhist attitude proves ever more important in its logic (for a geek girl) provides some peace. I wrote about ‘isms here – but more recently I have been struck (and educated) by these three very real conversations: (this article is a very great resource for those who need to explain to children why their music contains words they can never use) and these videos are important to watch:
and also this (but not for the swearing sensitive)
finally these words
5. Ithms
… (as in algorithms) are important – mega important. And Facebook used theirs to give everyone a snapshot of their year this Christmas, which created challenges for those who did not want to remember their year, and for the rest of us it reminded us that algorithms are powerful. I have worked hard all year for free on the digital democracy commission – and I know how we all need to take notice of the power of algorithms, and we need to own them, and understand their power and take them back from those who we have inadvertently bestowed the ultimate influence over our every day decisions. Algorithms help people make better decisions – through knowledge not PR. Democracy worldwide will be affected by this <— that is a prediction
6. Crowdfunding is hard.
Last year (’13) I raised money through crowdfunding, it absorbed my every waking hour during the process of raising the funds, mainly because if I did not reach my target I would not get any of the money people had pledged. This year I have raised again, but also encouraged others to try it, for smaller increments, but equally as hard to raise, as their fundraiser may not be as socially compelling, but still as viable. I can give you three fundraising tips:
save the best for last – play hard to get, give out increments but KNOW that the final push is going to be the greatest, pretend you are dating the love of your life and apply all dating theory
don’t just shout louder and louder into the same echo chamber of social media – they heard you, they were not interested when it was interesting, they are definitely not interested now you are desperate
social media strategy has to include target markets and timing (time of day, work/play/weekend/weekday/US/UK) to ignore this is foolish
Also, make sure the crowdfunding vehicle you choose has a good reach, and ideally gives you the money you raised regardless of you reaching target or not in the time limit you set. Only fair.
7. Hiring people – unless you are good at hiring people, do not hire people. Ever. Ever ever.
Even when you think you grew up. Do not hire people. It is a talent, you either have it or you don’t. If you don’t, get very brilliant at writing the job description of the person you need, and pay someone to hire people for you. (You can pay a friend in beer or chocolate, that’s fine, just don’t do it yourself). Ever. Like an alcoholic. You can never hire. You never could. You never will be able to.
8. Founder CEOs that are successful can be numbered on one hand.
If you are a CEO then you are awesome and probably hugely well paid and if you are reading this, looking to start a business (or my mate). I say – find a founder and start a business and read the Beermat entrepreneur (never irrelevant over God knows how many years). If you are a Founder, find a CEO and bow out early (also read Beermat entrepreneur). I wrote about this throughout the year, but have not yet concluded my story, but I am very happy with people whom I trust; it has taken a while to find those I trust totally to run the businesses I founded and poured my soul and mortgage into. Now I need to walk away for a few years and get a job.
9. BOARDS! Get one
Oh my goodness, I always shied away from boards before when I set up businesses because I was/am a control freak and thought they would take away my very clear vision of what I wanted or needed to do (in spite of the odds). In fact, a well-selected small board frees and empowers you. This is so important.
10. Balance.
This year I have been to Buckingham Palace so many times it is actually becoming a bit of a chore. I know that sounds vain but it is not. It is a huge privilege, but so is getting my 12 year old from school on time. I worried more about being at the agreed place for my youngest daughter on an Autumnully dark evening than I did screeching in to BP to shake hands and chat with people I know and love hugely, but can see anywhere any time, but felt compelled to do so more vigorously because it was BP. I would rather be with my own family, but I also see the amazing opportunity here for everyone to be able to experience this now that geeks are cool.
If only I could have gifted any one of my invitations to people who would have loved to have been at BP. This year we got some Young Rewired Staters and their families in for a tea and chat with Prince Andrew – I am sure they will remember it forever, I will too – mainly because I could get this photo for everyone (here is what it looks like from the other side – and the Palace is very lovely, but super hot, wear layers)
P.S. I did manage to meet the Queen and forget to curtsey (is spite of my life spent curtseying to people who did not actually require curtseying to, physically or otherwise) but being reassured that I was not alone (by Prince William) basically made up for it – that and flirting with Will.I.AM in BP has to be a highlight of this ridiculous year.
11. The Arts
Music is so important! I have been very focused for many years, on work and children, but I valued silence when alone. This is a massive mistake I now realise. Whilst yes peace is good – music is revolutionary for the mood. And actually, as much as you put time into your family and work, unless you are an artist or work in a museum – music is available to everyone and is an art form that affects us all. Music is important.
12. Being stony broke on a weekend…
Having no money at all is OK, so long as you can plan your way out of it. A few times this year, because of being a business owner and founder, and wholly reliant on it AND moving on, there has inevitably been times in the handover where I am not in control of pipeline (necessarily) and it has all gone a bit awry in the handover. And I have been actually penniless. Yes I have a mortgage and was not in fear of losing that at the time, but actually I had no access to any cash at all just when a wasp decided that the eaves under dort 1 and 2’s room was PERFECT for a nest. That weekend I could not even rustle up twenty quid for the local dude to come clear it for me, I had to wait for a large corp to pay an invoice, and then I could be paid and could bring in a wasp person to clear the 2000 wasps who ended up rooming with the girls. But it was fine. We had tins and pasta to live on and my room is at the back of the house… and middle class problems.. seriously – it was fine. But also it was a lesson! You can appaz have it all, but have nothing, and having nothing in this instance was OK. So I am less fearful.
13. If you can do nothing about the thing you are worrying about, fret not. If you can. Fret not. (paraphrasing the Dalai Lama)
Living in the moment is a challenge to myself from me for 2015. My sig oth is amazing at this, as is my Mum and my Dad. I would like to experience what it is like to live in the moment and accept it and move on *more* than I did in 2014. Every time I did manage to live in the moment, practising extreme Buddhism in time of extreme stress – was hugely powerful, I would like to practise this extreme Buddhism in times of peace and sod all going on, just to see if I can and to see what happens.
14. Finally: Climb a mountain.
We spend all of our lives climbing never-ending imaginary mountains. Climb a real one. I recommend Sugar Loaf in South Wales as a great starter. Take the hard road up, drink pure mountain water in the stream running through the damn valley between you and the top, meander up it with tea and cake breaks, follow the streams or the sheep paths, but take the hard road up. Then enjoy the peak. And take the easy road down. I cannot tell you how powerful it is to actually climb a real mountain, even a little one. I would love to leave you with a powerful mountain image taken from the top, but the problem is they never do justice to the climb, and you have to do it yourself.
Wishing you all a very wonderful 2015, from my family to yours xoxo
I get asked to respond to this question in public and private forums a *lot*. I often trot out the driver/passenger analogy, but this is not necessarily a good explanation for children. So here is another wheel-based explanation of why I, personally, believe it is an important skill to be taught in schools:
Buying a child a computer, laptop, tablet or smart phone without teaching them at least the basics of computational thinking and programming, is like buying them a bike and letting them cycle on the roads.
As responsible parents we ensure the children know the rules of the road, stuff like:
which direction the cars drive in
how to keep themselves safe
when to use pavements and when to try the road
to avoid motorways
and so on…
We probably start with teaching them how to operate the bike at home and in safe areas before allowing them the freedom of the road, but let’s face it for this analogy, most of these children know how to ride a bike from their first efforts with a tablet and apps when still toddlers. However, we need them to understand the environment, so that they can act accordingly, safely and happily ride their bikes – exploring and learning and most importantly having fun.
Some of these children will grow up to simply continue to be casual bikers, it is just something they can do and enjoy. Some will become professional cyclists, some will become serious weekend road warriors, some will learn to build bikes and make a living out of it. But they have all grown up completely understanding the environment within which they can ride their bikes, and how it all works.
If you take this analogy back to giving them their computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone, current accepted behaviour is to restrict them to only riding their bike in the sitting room, with Mum, Dad or teacher holding their back wheel – this way they will be safe. Or the other extreme, let them out the front door and send them straight off onto the roads with no guidance. To be fair, most parents assume that schools have already got this one, that these young people are being taught the basics of the environment therefore it is not ridiculous to let them out the front door.
But the reality is that currently they don’t. And it is only best efforts from volunteer groups, such as CodeClub, and a small number of IT teachers who have the skills and ability to teach the essential rules of operation in a digital world. In Young Rewired State we have spent the last five years finding and fostering the young people who have been teaching themselves how to code, introducing them to each other and to mentors who can help them further their skills – slowly we are building a supported network of people aged 18 and under, who are learning through peer-to-peer and are no longer isolated and having to work out the rules of the road by themselves.
The world that these children are growing up into is rapidly becoming a world largely dependent on digital, a digital renaissance is upon us if you like. To whizz back to the analogy, the roads and the cyclists are becoming ever more critical to the infrastructure and operation of our entire world. It is not just about job opportunities, it is about being digital citizens, fully informed and empowered to confidently make choices and decisions, almost without having to think. They need to just know.
Here is a little video we created at this year’s Festival of Code about why we do what we do:
Last year and earlier this year I blogged about wanting to run Young Rewired State around the world. This was in response to so many people from other countries getting in touch and saying how much they needed something similar to happen where they lived. To recap, for those who don’t know, this is what Young Rewired State is all about:
YRS is an independent global network of kids aged 18 and under who have taught themselves to program computers. We introduce these children to like-minded peers at events around the world where they use freely available open data to make websites, apps and algorithms to solve real world challenges
As you can see we have already included the fact that it is about a global community, and this is down to the success we have had in this year of experimentation beyond the shores of the UK.
We have been blown away by the joy and excitement experienced by the young people who have come to the events we have run, and the remarkable similarities between what these children create, learn and value from becoming a part of this community, and taking part in these events.
Here are a couple of videos from the events we ran in New York City and in Berlin earlier this year:
And if you cannot speak German, then switch on captions to watch this one:
You can read the round-up from both events here and here, and in November we are running an event with GitHub in San Francisco, details here
YRS{E} in 2014
We have learned a *lot* during the process of planning, partnering and running these events around the world, and have now come up with a scalable plan for 2014, again we will see if it works before rolling it out beyond 2014; but here is how we see it working…
There will be two options for running a YRS event where you live:
Option 1
If you are an organisation that is used to running hack-style events, then we would provide you with a pack detailing how to run a YRS event, create a registration page and microsite on our website for registering the young people and mentors and an MOU on how the event should be run, our values and our brand guidelines.
We will alert the worldwide young coding community when and where the event is taking place, and provide social media cover during the weekend.
This would not have a cost associated with it, but you would need to raise local sponsorship to cover event costs like venue, food, AV/wifi, publicity and prizes.
There will be options to get more from us, like weekly skype calls and community reach to young programmers, but these would incur a small charge in order to cover the central staff costs and time.
Option 2
We would work with partners in-country to assist with full delivery of the event, and would fly out a team for the week to actually run it. This would be a far more hands-on partnership for us with the regional teams and would suit those organisations who want to host a local Young Rewired State event, but are not used to running hack events.
This would carry a fixed cost of £20,000 for the work the dedicated central team will do, and include all costs including flights, accommodation, food etc. In addition to this fee, you would still need to raise local sponsorship to cover event costs like venue, food, AV/wifi, publicity and prizes.
America and Europe
As we have successfully run these events this year in America and Europe, we are also looking at raising central funding in the form of Grants, partnerships and central sponsorship that may well enable us to cover some of the costs ourselves; and so the above two options would become cheaper or even free, over time and in certain regions.
The Festival of Code
At each event we have run, the young people all expressed a desire, no an absolute need, to take part in the annual Festival of Code, run every year in the first full week of August. We are currently looking at the logistics of doing this, so watch this space – we will have worked it out by the time we are in San Francisco, and I will of course blog about it!
I shall leave the last words with Nadine (a YRSer from New York) and Ashley (a mentor from Code for America)
Want to run Young Rewired State where you are?
Contact hello@youngrewiredstate.org and speak to either myself, Kait or Ruth about what happens next…
A whole year and a half ago, in August 2011, I wrote a post called: Year 8 is too late, this post is an update to that one, because – worryingly – this is not recognised as an issue. To me it is blindingly obvious and I suspect it is to most people when you stop and think about it. Back in 2011 the reference was to educating girls in computing and less about the fact that programming was not being taught in schools – which has obviously become the topic du jour, thankfully.
So I would like to reiterate the problem and outline the solution:
children are not being taught digital literacy in our schools
knowing how to use software products and shiny kit is not the same as being digitally literate
understanding how the web works is a fundamental right for every person living in the 21st century, how else can we know and understand how and what choices are made on our behalf (read Douglas Rushkoff Program or be Programmed on this matter)
if in the UK we outsource the building of our ideas, because we have failed generations by forgetting to teach basic programming skills to keep up with technology, we become irrelevant muppets
spending time and money on fabricating a tech base in London, on a roundabout, is a complete farce if we are simply shop fronts with the technical talent having to be outsourced/imported because we neglected to educate the people who are learning in the UK
naturally, if we want to move towards equality in technology, we must ensure we afford the girls the opportunity to learn at an age when they are excited and searching for more stuff to learn – ie in junior school, or from birth
children are being taught to fear the internet rather than understand it, with schools restricting more and more access, rather than enabling them to understand what digital citizenship means; leaving them abandoned at 18, naive, unprepared and scared of what might happen, perpetuating the myth by avoiding too much understanding and simply being consumers of code-driven technology
the current solution is being authored by exam boards reinventing the ICT GCSE – this in itself is a problem because this is the hardest place to start, it is way too late, but everyone assumes the solution is on the way – it is not
the DfE can’t do anything about this other than highlight the problem, the schools have autonomy over what they teach and how – maybe we should have a policy change, I am not sure, but schools have the onus on them to address and resolve this
schools do not currently have access to the talent that can teach programming and there is no way to use traditional teaching methods – the industry moves too fast
computational thinking is not taught as standard – this is ridiculous
digital literacy is not seen as core. Digital literacy is as core learning as numeracy and literacy, “computeracy” is a terrible term but it MUST be understood to be as fundamental as maths and taught
this discussion is so old and in spite of much being written and understood about why this is important, nothing is being done, properly STILL(!) this is a national disgrace, we should be ashamed of ourselves
we have not even yet managed to incorporate digital learning in the classroom, so terrified are we, yet look at what is happening in South Korea simply enabling learning beyond the classroom is a start, certainly for learning how to code
we are falling behind all other countries by doing nothing more than shaking our heads at the problem and perhaps attending a one-day course on coding
even more worryingly, some of the solutions being mooted in schools involve ideation only, coming up with an idea for an app, then the creation of that app outsourced to India (getting them to do our kids’ homework) I think this is criminal and exacerbating a problem that is already terrible
computer science, including programming, is a new and separate subject, it is not a version of ICT, nor some newfangled way to do business studies, it is a separate and new subject for schools and should be inducted as so
our Universities do run computer science courses, that unsurprisingly do not require any ICT GCSE/A levels to qualify for the course… as a result of this, much of the programming section of the computer science degree is taken up by teaching young adults GCSE level computing – this is embarrassing and explains why few self-taught developers will bother going to universities, which means they miss out on the stuff they would really benefit from learning at University, plus the other immeasurable ’rounding off’ being in further education brings – this is not fair
if your child is ten or older and they have not begun to understand how the internet works and how to program, or even just computational thinking and logic – it is going to be hard for them, and that is unfair
there are jobs, thousands of jobs, unfilled, in this country alone – for programmers of all levels from technical leads to absolute beginners – and it is only going to get worse as more and more children leave school without 21st century basic working skills. At a time when we are broken and heading for triple dip recession, how can this not be seen as insanity? What the actual ****? Teach those kids those skills, get them into those empty jobs – kickstart the economy… no-brainer
Here is my fist stab at a solution to all of the above:
teach “computeracy” as a part of the core curriculum from year 5. Here is some advice from Matthew Applegate on what to teach at what age:
Year 5 = 9-10 age Computational thinking, logic, cause and effect (try Scratch, Google app inventor or Lego Mindstorms all visual based programming) or even Game Maker.
Year 7 = 11-12 age try XNA, iPhone & Android dev the program doesn’t have to be complex or world changing you just have to show them a way in. Also they love being able to use and create on up to date tech.
Year 8 = 12-13 age some of the best iPhone developers are 13 years old.
stop thinking of it as a nice to have and understand that it is a human right to be digitally literate and therefore have some measure of control and choice in the 21st century
encourage every child you know age 10 or under to become digital makers – find and use those online resources, for example Mozilla’s web maker – designed for everyone, let it be natural
fight hard, ask your school, don’t think it is being dealt with – it is not
learn how to teach basic programming and computational thinking and get down to your local junior school and offer your services – in the same way you would go and listen to kids reading, it is just as important
focus on the under tens, I am afraid the 10yrs+ kids are going to have to fight it out for themselves if they are so inclined – if they have not already done so
let the exam boards work on changing the structure and content of computer science GCSEs/EBACCs and A Levels, but be prepared that this will be a long-burn slow-win until we have taught the basics to the junior school kids
So the time has come when we are all itching for more Young Rewired State, and interestingly it seems that year 4-5 of this thing is when it all starts to get local. As you know, we like to try stuff to see if it works and so here is a very brief outline of the plans as we stand today, (PLANS, not definites… we are still testing ideas):
YRS in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
Historically we have struggled to get centres and kids in these areas, mainly because we need to do more to raise awareness of YRS rather than there not being any kids who could take part. So we are planning on running three separate hack weekends on open local government data for 50 kids in each place, emulating what we did in England in 2009 at Google – the beginning of YRS.
if you would like to assist with the organisation of any of these three weekends, please let me know
YRS UK local
We now have 42 centres across the UK, some slightly bamboozled, but those who are in their 2nd or 3rd year of being a centre are well-established and seeing a need to foster the local coding youth community beyond the annual event, both through the centre and with Ben (Nunney)’s community management offerings to all of the YRSers.
We are also looking at how these kids can work together on local community projects, or not – just things that interest them – and would like to see the centres be involved in this.
Please bear with us as we take our time to get this right. We have managed to nut years 1-4, we just need to work out year 5 and then we can rinse and repeat, for everyone.
YRS Worldwide
The idea has always been to find and foster every kid who is driven to teach themselves how to code, and this does not limit us to the UK. For a few years now we have received messages from people overseas keen to run their own YRS events. So in 2013 we are launching YRS Everywhere. We are going to run weekends (again for 50 kids using local open government data) in the following places:
Estonia
Berlin
New York
Amsterdam
Kenya
plus one other wild card (we have a few options here you see)
We will replicate the method of scale we used in the UK, moving from weekend to week, to multiple centres and finally hyper-local, year on year – all the time connecting these young coders to each other, in a very light way, maintaining the worldwide mentoring model used to date. We have no idea how this will work out, but we have begun chats with local developer networks who will act as foster networks for the youngsters, and open government data people in country, and the response has been wildly enthusiastic.
If any of you have contacts in any of these countries, please do hook me up with them, I would like to tie everything together as much as I can
Money – how are we paying for this?
Firstly it is important to clarify that my intention is not to build an organisation and flog it for millions. The idea is that this thing will be built and will grow and grow and grow, goodness knows where it will take us all but I would still like to be doing this when I am 90, and I would like to still be doing this with you all. I find that more exciting than being rich for a few years then sad and lonely…
We run YRS on a sponsor model, covering costs by trading what we actually have (access to young programming minds to test kit or raise brand awareness to a new generation) but not selling databases or IP. Obviously I have given up work now and we have a small team who run YRS and Rewired State (Rewired State being a profit-making social enterprise), we are paid through money made on RS hack days and through pieces of consultancy. YRS will continue to run on a NfP model, as we grow so we will need to raise more money to cover our ambition, but we are not shackled to a VC because we are not building a business to sell – we are creating a network that will continue to grow and hopefully gainfully employ more and more people and be rewarding and energising – because we have no flipping idea what is actually going to happen, and have the freedom to do this.
And so we work very closely with our chosen sponsors every year to both get the cash we need to run this thing and to get them the results they need in order to donate actual money to us. It is a fine line but we work hard to get it right (nearly there!).
We intend to find a single main partner for Young Rewired State: Everywhere, as SAP were for us in the 2012 Festival of Code. We will find a model that combines local, in-country sponsorship, combined with our main partner sponsor.
In addition to this we will continue to run ‘for profit’ Rewired State hack days to support central costs.
The only way we can scale to find every single kid driven to teach themselves how to code, is to avoid obvious limitations. There is not going to be any single group that rises to the top as an outright winner from YRS, everyone will benefit, but every person involved can choose how they shape their involvement in YRS – it totally will be what you make of it.
I know I am in it for life and I am going to dedicate myself to making it great and worldwide. Young developers will take the network and make friends for life, build businesses, create the next bazillion dollar thing. Mentors will become worldwide mentors helping young people from all backgrounds, maybe even working with them to create something world-changing. Centres will find their own local coding youth and will hold the ability to shape that relationship and hone those skills for the greater good, or for their own. The Rewired State team work together to boldly go wherever, to try stuff, test and be brave, with a small cushion (a very small cushion) of financial stability. It is what we all make of it.
But I do not believe in death by committee. I never have but flirted with it in the early days of this social enterprise and it failed. I plan to lead this thing and forge ahead with as much support as I can muster and see how far we get. A time will come when what we are doing becomes irrelevant, at that point I will get a new job.
if any of you know of any potential sponsors or partners for any of this, please let me know
This year, as every year, I decided that I would have one major focus for Young Rewired State in addition to the general idea: introducing young programmers to open data. This year I decided I would try to really focus on the issue of the pitifully small number of girls in tech and specifically girls applying to join in YRS2012.
In previous years we have struggled enough trying to find any child under the age of 18 who could programme, let alone deal with the girl thing. Yet every year I come under heavy criticism for not having enough girls there and no matter how many times you say: ‘it is not for want of trying‘, there is only so much defending you can do before really trying to *do* something.
Cue me in 2012.
Every media event, every radio broadcast, every TV split-second and every speaking opportunity, blog post or “fireside chat” this year I have bemoaned the fact that so few girls sign up for Young Rewired State, and indeed how many of those who do sign up, tend to pull out at the last minute and called for more girls: welcome the girls, I cried – loudly! With a view to increasing our number from 5% to 30%. I wanted to draw the girls out, let them know about this, let their parents know – showcase and applaud them on the YRS platform – this year bigger and shinier than ever before…
I hope you can tell by now where I am going, but I am going to drag you through every painful penny-dropping moment so that you never make this mistake yourself, dear reader.
About a month ago, whilst on an hour-long telephone conference call with some well-meaning people helping me ‘get more girls’, I found myself nodding along as ideas were discussed such as: you need to find some more “girly data”… like nursing, is there anything like that in data.gov.uk? I *actually* found myself questioning my data for pink subjects, oh my god, even I knew this was a spectacular low for me. At this point I began to question my focus and modus operandi for getting more girls. The MO being: shout more loudly in forums where girls and their parents might hear – that’ll work, that and pink data.
At this point I allowed myself the special treat of discovering how many girls we had this year. I had put off looking, focusing instead on the drive to get more girls, trying to build and extend the amount of time I took to do the percentages, so that I could give myself a little pat on the back when I saw the fruits of my work.
Guess what? The number of girls applying to YRS this year have… dropped
Completely bamboozled as to why my monstrously massive effort to encourage girls into programming was failing, I even took boy photos off the new YRS website (yet to be launched, but coming soon) jic it put girls off, I began wringing my hands at public events. Not only were my efforts failing to increase the numbers, it was actively reducing the numbers who signed up – please help me, someone. Audiences chuckled and looked awkward, and I grew ever more concerned about this – what on earth was I doing wrong? Maybe I should wangle a slot on Woman’s Hour.
Through this trojan effort to get more girls I had the benefit of meeting lots of amazing people trying to redress the male/female balance in all sorts of walks of life – it had not ever been a raison d’être of mine, I have been lucky enough to never really be bothered by this personally, and I have worked in many *male* jobs, I just do my thing…
(:) sorry had to work that one in… I digress)
Yet I do not mean to detract from the people who do so, it is an issue, yes, a worldwide issue and especially in programming/tech.
Through a charity we had worked with: Refugees United, I was introduced to the wonderful Kristen Titus, based in New York and running Girls who code. An ambitious programme and something I support hugely and wish we had here, big time. Kristen and I arranged a skype chat and riffed for an hour about how the UK and US were dealing with the broader issue of programming skills in a digital world with analogue schools and inevitably came back to my baffled moaning about how the number of girls had dropped this year – could I blame the Economic Crisis? Could Kristen find some anthropological reason why no girls were signing up? I mean… I made such an effort *sigh*
Kristen said this (ish, I cannot remember verbatim)
So you identified that the girls were not signing up in their teenage years as they have a greater need to fit in. You identified that the girls dropped out the closer the event got as they were concerned about being showcased and ‘outed’. You know, as a mother of two girls, that identity trumps everything… yet you chose to publicly out this problem, to use your public platform to draw a big red ring around the issue and then essentially dared girls to sign up – after you took your sweet time to turn that massive spotlight directly on them and them alone – in advance of the week? Hmm… I can’t think why… maybe you need more pink data…
I have to say that I lie quite appallingly here, Kristen was very kind in her gentle admonishment and practical advice, but this is what my brain finally said to me as she spoke. So thank you, Kristen, and sorry for completely bastardizing your observations!
I think we can pretty much accept that the traditional model of making the world work and surviving in it has broken, even for bankers. Whether this be the status quo for those on benefits, the funding mechanisms for start-ups, the charitable foundations, those looking to sponsor stuff and those seeking sponsorship right up to those who have done well for themselves – nothing is guaranteed and pretty much every system except celebrity is broken. So who can really blame the kids and adults for seeking a future through game and talent shows on TV – that’s basically the only model that has thrived and survived (dear Daily Mail commentors).
I think that I am a pretty odd person. I was odd at school: geek/nerd/books/computers/maths but I also survived. When I started relationships and breeding I guess I normalised – my weird edges were moulded into something vaguely resembling a mother and a worker – I never got the wife thing right and I am definitely appalling at school run outer-wear. But what I do have is a keen sense for survival – therefore I am what is socially classed as a serial entrepreneur. Yet I do not plan on retiring in five years having sold a business idea for millions – I plan on putting my talents to use doing things I can do and working with the very best of the best to making stuff I like doing happen. I think it is just happenstance that what I like doing is for the greater good – I wouldn’t champion me that much, there is an element of selfishness in there.
I also (as you might expect from the brief bio of my youth) am not excellent at networking and people. This makes my working life harder, but I can overcome that in a variety of brilliant ways – these do not include mass events with lots of people but definitely include my fabulous twitter family.
This is by the by…
OK so assuming we accept that traditional stuff is broken, but the broken society requires innovation and energy (as shown most successfully through TV talent and celebrity shows) – so how do we shred the tradition, without fear and look to what’s left.
I have been there and so I think I can help
I love Rewired State and Young Rewired State. Let’s be honest, Rewired State is probably about three years too early if it is to survive through hack days that pay developers for rapid R&D – we can survive, definitely – but we will have to do other stuff. Meanwhile we have a network of over 600 developers keen to help pretty much everybody – except recruitment agents and people needing code monkeys – the devs want to do strategy and innovation and in a digital world, you’d be bonkers not to let them; but in reality the world is not yet quite ready for that, it is broken and hack days are not traditional.
FACT: many want hack days because they have now become an OK way of dipping your toe in the water of innovation, but they do not fit with traditional R&D and so there is no budget, therefore your hack days have to rely on the benefaction of developers willing to work on your problem/idea for free/FA so… you are pretty stuffed. Let me give you an extreme example. We are running a hack day, on a boat, in Cannes, at MIPCUBE, presenting to attendees of MIPCUBE and MIPTV and we are not awash with developers keen to do this. Why? Because of developer apathy, a whole other blog post. So if you want to actually engage devs in a hack day, for sod all and you can beat a boat in the South of France and one of the most high profile geekTV events in the world then you may have a chance of attracting a few – if you don’t, I would rethink it until the budget meets the ambition. Please do not believe the myth that devs will code in a garage for free on your stuff. They just won’t and why should they?
I digress…
Here is what I wanted to share with you
Knowing me as you do either in person or through blogs and twitter, I work relentlessly for the things I believe in. But paying for these things in traditional fashion means that I do not meet the demands of mortgage/tax/life for myself nor fair work for people I represent and the organisations I think can make a difference to, I refuse to accept this so I have had to be inventive. Here’s how to break the world and survive (I am only in stage 2, I have not yet officially survived but I think I can see the light, so come with me)
work with the knowledge you have to build a vision of what you want
social funding is there – benefactors have set up organisations to pay for stuff to happen if you can prove its worth – use them
talk to everyone and be honest – through doing this with Simon Peyton-Jones one day, he then introduced me to a retired man who was the ex CEO of Shell and BCS, who came to my house and learned about what I was trying to achieve and has since helped immensely from toilets at Bletchley Park to Scouts and tents to mentoring me and championing the work of YRS – you cannot buy that
I cannot tell you the people I have been exposed to though being honest and fighting for what I believe, I met Conrad Wolfram and had an hour on the phone with him after the fact chatting about how he could produce stuff to help YRSers get more maths out of coding
I had an email from Douglas Rushkoff – with advice…
through NESTA I discovered the peoplefund.it site and have begun crowdsourcing for Young Rewired State 2012
through tweeting pics of my dad’s BBC Micros and my old educational software I talked to Chris Monk from The National Museum of Computing who fixed the micros for free and then came to Learning Without Frontiers to showcase the old Micros and now they are hosting the show and tell for YRS2012
At my dining room table yesterday I had a volunteer and a YRSer working for on YRS2012 in return for a bottle of cold coke, tea, fruit and haribos
Rory Cellan Jones and Stephen Fry tweet about what we do – not because they happened upon it, but because we are relentless and we are good and we work hard – this is not an insurmountable problem for anyone, we can all be good at what we do and work hard
Make no bones about it, it is flipping hard.
It’s about 17 hours a day of hard graft and it depends on a massive slashing of social media and community (but not dependent on real life networking, thank goodness), creating fundable projects for charitable trusts to invest in and ultimately a massive dollop of finding people who have capacity and might welcome a chance to work on what you are doing.
This way we can break the world but make it sustainable. It takes guts and if the world was not so broken it would be much harder to fix, but quite frankly there are many of us in the same position – so carpe diem and do what you want and find a way to live through that thing – forget the traditional routes and benefits. It’s borked.
PS Do not be tempted to secure your foray into the future from the broken past by paying for advice from people who have no proven success in the future. There will be many who offer unique skills, telling you scary things like: “My skills are unique, I scale social businesses and there is no one like me” pay me xxx – these people will not really be worth much, Trusts will help you and guide you through their processes and needs – even if you start from a great idea with no idea. And finally, if anyone asks you for a % of your organisation PLUS a salary, walk away immediately – they do not believe in your success as an enterprise and are only in it for the cash. (Thank you @sleepydog for that gem!)
PPS I am funding Young Rewired State partly through crowdsourced money – yes because I have to but also because so many people get to be a part of YRS, which for me is the greatest thing on the planet. Pledge your hard-earned cash here, and if you can’t, tell your networks, someone will have a tenner
This is a cross-post of something I wrote for The Guardian, but just thought would be handy to have on the blog over here. It is also a small update from an old post: How to teach kids, or anyone, how to code – that’s the history bit done! Now the science…
The beauty of programming is that it does not matter how old you are (within reason – under 7 is possibly a bit optimistic) you can learn using exactly the same, mostly free resources to be found on the Internet. You can learn basic programming easily within a year and then you can choose to hone and refine whichever aspects of coding most excite you. Done! It’s not hard.
For the purposes of this post I have referred to resources aimed primarily at younger people – but they are all useful for the beginner.
Two of the most common questions are:
1. What language (programming language) should I learn/teach? 2. What resources are there out there to learn how to code?
The answer to question 1 is easy: any/all. The younger programmers are typically polyglottal coders, applying different languages to different challenges, with fewer specialising in one language.
The answer to 2 is also easy: there are many and I will list some here. (Do keep an eye out, there are more resources put online every day and it is always worth watching out for more/better/easier ones.)
Please note, I am deliberately *not* going to recommend one language over another, nor opine the benefits/pitfalls of each – find out which one suits you and start there. Another tip is once you have found a language you are keen to learn, then do search YouTube for further free support and tutorials, there are far too many to name-check here, but it is brimming with people willing to share knowledge in an easy to digest fashion.
(If you don’t have an hour or so free right now, then come back to it, but watch the ten ish minutes from this point in the video)
Free online resources
By far the most intuitive and simple website released lately is http://codecademy.com It teaches javascript through a series of very short and simple lessons. My 9 year old daughter started coding using this and it just got her into understanding how written code works.
Scratch http://scratch.mit.edu/ is taught in an increasing number of schools now. Created by MIT it is a programming language that helps computational thinking as well as collaborative working as you build, create and share.
For those of you who love to really get into the meat of a subject, then http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ is a great book/free download. It would not be suitable for the very young coder, but do not be put off by the title – it is surprisingly compelling.
Blitz Academy has a whole list of resources for those thinking about getting a job as a games developer (in fact the reading and link list is interesting for anybody even vaguely interested in anything)
The Bytes Brothers books [http://www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=1171] are a “…sort of a cross between Encyclopedia Brown and Micro Adventure, each volume in this series contains several short mysteries. The user must read carefully and run very simple BASIC computer programs in order to guess the solutions.”
I can’t really leave you without the links to Alice, having started with the Randy Pausch lecture; it is a programming environment not a language:
Alice is a 3d programming environment, designed to “create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.”
So there is Alice 2.0 and Alice 2.2 as well as Story Telling Alice. The latter was the one mentioned by Randy as being developed by Caitlin Kelleher and is “… designed to motivate a broad spectrum of middle school students (particularly girls) to learn to program computers through creating short 3D animated movies.” You can download Story Telling Alice here, but it is not hugely tested, is only available for windows based machines, has no support – but I certainly play about with it with Amy (9).
‘Proper’ Alice has full support and documentation and teaching materials and so on.
And that’s it, but there is a constant stream of useful stuff being built and recorded every day, so this post will date quickly! But once you have learned how to code, join us over at Young Rewired State!
Emma Mulqueeny 