CodingDay in Vienna – A kick-off for Code Week in Austria

Publication date: October 14, 2019

By Andrea, Code Week Ambassador in Austria

It was about a year ago when I received an invitation to a meeting of the Austrian chambers of economies to participate in a discussion about strategies in the field of education. Even though, I wasn’t invited as a Code Week Ambassador, I immediately saw the need to communicate the initiative in that circle.  It is so positive to see the outcome of this initial effort by participating in the kick-off event for this year’s Code Week event in Austria, directly in the Headquarter of Austria’s chambers of economies last Friday.

Bild: © Nico Grienauer

Bild: © Nico Grienauer

The highlight of the event was a Hackathon for apprentices, developed by DaVinciLab.at. It was the first Hackathon in Austria for this target group, to which 80 apprentices took part already. Companies could register their apprentices, whereby small working groups could also join directly on site and take part in the competition.

Another important part of the event was the activity booths for primary school students. 24 different local educational IT-Initiatives were there in order to present their educational concepts and programs. A big variety of different tools and methods were presented and students could take part actively.

Bild: © Jacqueline Godany / Davincilab

e.g: Coding the Raspbotics board with Scratch. (www.raspbotics.at)

Bild: © Andrea Mayr-Stalder

My personal highlight was the combination of the wooden construction set “Matador” with the Microbit-Controller.

Bild: © Jacqueline Godany / Davincilab

Activity booths for primary school students. In the foreground colour coding with Ozobots. Followed by coding for the embroidery machine (turtlestitch.org) based on Snap! (snap.berkeley.edu/).
In the background our Codeweek booth. For the secondary level 1 and 2, there were well selected workshops, among others Scratch (scratch.mit.edu), Snap! (snap.berkeley.edu/), programming with the Hedgehog Controller (hedgehog.pria.at), and coding with Python.

The support by the Austrian Economic Chambers in the form of a large public educational event has been very helpful to make Code Week better known in Austria and to launch a positive dynamic.

With Code Week we can create a common networked consciousness for creative coding and design at an early stage. Not only will prospective programmers benefit from this exposure, but also all
those who will use technical networking in their professional environment in the future. I can think of no area in which this will not be necessary.

And therefore: More Code Week in education!