Northcoders is to host open events for National Coding Week to tackle the digital skills crisis.
The tech firm is inviting people in the North West to join them next week at its office in Manchester city centre.
Co-founder James Brooke (pictured below) said: “We’re extremely proud to be supporting National Coding Week. It’s a fantastic initiative that is bringing industry professionals across the UK together to tackle the digital skills crisis.
“Our free events are a teaching knowledge exchange and a free taster session for those interested in learning to code.”
The ‘teaching knowledge exchange’ will take place on Tuesday 19th September and include talks on programming analogies (Mauro Gestoso of Northcoders), techniques for mentoring and being mentored (Rebekah Cooper of Co-op Digital) and how we teach complicated stuff, with recursion as an example (Harriet Ryder of Northcoders).
Now in its fourth year, #NationalCodingWeek expects more than 3,000 people to take part in free events across the country from September 18th to 24th.
The events are entirely run by volunteers and encourage adults to try their hand at writing computer code, or learn about coding – often for the first time.
Volunteers behind this year’s educational events come from a range of organisations, from start-ups to multinationals.
Richard Rolfe, founder of National Coding Week, said: “As a ‘crowd sourced’ event, the success of National Coding Week rests on passionate computer programmers, developers and digital professionals who give back by hosting their own events.
“This isn’t a Government initiative, nor are we doing it for profit. National Coding Week was created because, as an industry, we identified that we needed to do something ourselves to address this ever-growing skills gap.
“But we also believe that coding is a lot of fun and a fantastic skill that should be opened up to more people.”