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Afrobeat-sponsored coding boot camp for secondary school students |03 September 2019

Afrobeat-sponsored coding boot camp for secondary school students

Students will learn teen coding with Python 1 during the boot camp

Twenty-four secondary school students will this week have an opportunity to venture into the digital world of coding through a Coding Boot Camp hosted by Round Table Seychelles, in partnership with Absa Group Limited (serving as Barclays), and in collaboration with Seychelles Breweries Limited.

The exciting programme targeting young Seychellois secondary school students is being held at the Beau Vallon Secondary School.

It officially started yesterday morning and will close on Friday September 6 with a certificate presentation ceremony.

The programme, being delivered in collaboration with the National Institute for Science, Technology and Innovation (Nisti) and international coding tutors from Fire Tech, a UK-based company specialising in technology-focused camps for young people will see students undertake an immersive introduction to computer programming with hands on application over the course of the five days.

Chief executive of Nisti, Xavier Estico noted that the idea for a coding boot camp during school holidays was first suggested to him by a concerned parent a couple of years ago. The parent has also eased contact between Nisti and Fire Tech.

Despite negotiations, however, Nisti lacked adequate resources to host the camp until the agreement with Absa Bank which whole-heartedly supported the initiative.

“Coding is extremely important to young people and will undoubtedly be useful to them in future. Of course, coding and programming language are related with robotics so it will be useful for our students who will be participating in the robotics challenge in future,” Mr Estico noted.

He further expressed his gratitude to all the partner organisations and the management of Beau Vallon Secondary School who provided the school’s computer laboratory for the sessions.

Over the course of the five days, students will learn teen coding with Python 1 whereby they will be introduced to concepts such as sequencing, selection and iteration, simple algorithm design and create modular programmes.

This session aims to introduce common design patterns and ways of designing programmes so that the results are modular and have the potential to be reused as well as equipping them with the knowledge to debug their code and work out how to help them when they run into problems.

Also on the programme is a coding games module designed to encourage young people to be creative and to create as opposed to simply consuming technology. Under the coding games modules, students are expected to put their gaming experience and imagination into action, to design and build an original creation that they can take home, play and show to family and friends. In these sessions, students will make use of the Greenfoot programming environment, to learn to code in Java to create their own amazing games. Coding concepts will include iteration, variables, Boolean logic, methods, functions and classes. In addition, students will work on creating their own graphics and animations for use in their games.

The initiative is funded by and follows the first Afrobeat Music Festival held earlier this year on Africa Day on May 25by Absa Group Limited, Seychelles Breweries Limited and Round Table Seychelles. The music festival featured many local artists performing African themed tunes as well as FUSE ODG headlining the event with the goal to raise funds to support digital innovation and skills development projects in Seychelles.

The 2019 Afrobeat Music Festival was the first of its kind in Seychelles with the purpose of supporting an innovation fund for projects related to technological innovation.

Round Table Seychelles has supported numerous projects and charitable causes throughout its 46 years of existence and strongly believe in the development of the youth to take on challenges of the future with technology.

“This camp will allow the students to take the first steps into computer programming with hands on applications, in a safe and fun approach,” said president of Round Table Seychelles Allain L’Etourdie.

Fire Tech is the UK’s leading provider of short, project-led tech workshops and camps. Launched in 2013, Fire Tech has delivered over 12,000 learning experiences. Our goal is to motivate and instil confidence in young people to create rather than consume technology.

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