BBC Birmingham takes on the Festival of Code for the third year running.
The Festival of Code returned to BBC Birmingham last week for its third consecutive year.
The festival saw 25 ten-eighteen year olds participate in week-long coding events at the BBC’s city centre base in the Mailbox in preparation for the Young Rewired State Festival of Code hack event at the International Convention Centre last weekend.
Throughout the week young coders worked on developing apps, websites, and digital prototypes under the supervision of BBC Product Manager Jim Johnson-Rollings amongst other BBC staff. Jim said interest is growing each year: “I think it’s a fantastic opportunity for like-minded young people to get together and spend some of their summer holidays working on a collaborative project, and hopefully learn something too.
“It’s exactly the sort of thing I’d have loved to do as a teenager. We have had new people come each year, but also a few have returned the past few years and it’s great to watch them develop.”
The week culminated with the coders attending the world’s largest hackathon at the ICC over the weekend where they presented their projects to industry experts, and participated in a series of workshops and hacking challenges.
Jim said: “Last year one of the teams from BBC Birmingham made it all the way to the final three in the Best in Show category with ‘The Hook’ – a digital coat-rack. This year although four of the BBC Birmingham teams got through to the semi-final and one got into the final; there were sadly no winners from Birmingham.”
This didn’t stop the participants getting something positive from the experience, as Elliot, 17, said: “I came last year. It was something I was interested in and it really improved my computing skills so I couldn’t wait to do it again this year.”
Elliot has ambitions to be a pilot but says because the aviation industry is highly competitive he sees coding as a potential back-up plan: “There are a lot of transferable skills between coding and my dream job. There will always be a need for coders and people with computing knowledge so I’m just enjoying doing it at the moment as a hobby, knowing that it could lead to a job for me in the future.”
Izzy, 13, is another return-coder who does a lot of her learning at home with her mother. “I’ve been coding for about two and a half years. I like it because it’s something you can self-teach,” she explains. “My mum got into it to help her with career prospects, so we watch YouTube tutorials together.”
The BBC got involved in the festival as part of the BBC Academy’s outreach strategy. Sarah Drummond, Sarah Drummond, Senior Outreach Manager at the BBC Academy said: “It is important to us to connect with our younger – and sometimes harder to reach – audiences. The coding club is a perfect way to do this. And it provides the additional benefit of allowing participants to gain experience, contacts and skills which may help them in their future careers.”