Coding Academy

To help Ukrainian students unleash their potential in the IT field and demonstrate the endless possibilities of smart technologies, the team of the NGO "SMART CITY HUB" launched courses on the basics of coding using the visual language Scratch.

Together with the Coding Academy and the BrainBasket Foundation, we have organized free weekly classes for children aged 7 to 12. Scratch is one of the most popular tools for teaching children programming, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Classes are conducted based on Kyiv Smart City Hub with teachers-mentors who have many years of practical experience in leading IT companies in Ukraine. They help children create animated and interactive stories, launch drones into the air and program robots themselves. The subject is taught "from scratch". Students are not required to have prior knowledge of structural programming or the basics of algorithmization. Software development develops analytical thinking, imagination and creativity. Programming skills allow children to think quickly and clearly. Students learn to understand how the world is arranged around them, establish a logical chain of events and can predict what will happen next.

Thus, we are preparing the ground for the development of future IT professionals in the country, which will further lead to the creation of startups and high-tech companies. The IT industry is one of the first in terms of wages in Ukraine. Today, about 46.6% of all Ukrainian IT specialists work in Kyiv. Thanks to quality IT education, in the future we will be able to increase the number of IT specialists, which will lead to the improvement and acceleration of the city's technologization. Our educational platform is aimed at attracting Kyiv students to technical design and programming. This knowledge is a qualitative basis for further professional development in the technical sciences. Within the Coding Academy we would like to achieve the following results:

  • Make quality IT education accessible to students
  • Increase the% of students who continue their education in technical institutions
  • Provide Kyiv with IT specialists

More than 300 children have already received certificates of successful completion of the course. And it is just the beginning! Our educational strategy is to provide children with up-to-date knowledge in the field of innovation and technology and to help them implement ideas. To interest students and stimulate the development of their technical skills, we involve different formats:

  • Participation of children in hackathons, IT-events across the country
  • Creation of teams to participate in the International Robotics Competition First Tech Challenge
  • Submission of projects by children to the “Public Budget”
  • Participation of children in a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for equipment
  • Participation in the All-Ukrainian competition STEAM HOUSE
  • Participation in the “Grant from the Mayor” project
  • Participation in the children's festival StartUp

We are constantly improving the curriculum for students, updating information and conducting classes in additional locations. As part of building a global educational platform, we try to attract all segments of school-age children, so we are launching free courses based on partner organizations and as part of electives in the capital's schools.

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