Meet and Code 2020 Has Kicked Off!

On Tuesday, September 1st, we officially kicked-off Meet and Code 2020 and began 2 months of coding!

#meetandcode #BMI #EUPresidency #KickOff
03.09.2020

Tuesday, September 1st, was not only the symbolic end of vacation - it was also the first day of the Meet and Code coding journey of 2020. Opening of our official Kick-Off Event, organized along with the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community (BMI) started off a beautiful day devoted to digital inclusion, value of online education in contemporary reality and putting the young generation first.

“We need to invest in them. This is tomorrow's workforce. We do it in Code Week. We do it in Meet and Code.”
_{- Fabrizia Benini, Head of Unit Digital Economy and Skills (European Commission)}


European Kick-Off

During the opening, our speakers Erwin Schwärzer, Head of Directorate at the Department of Digital Society and Digital Policy (BMI), Hartmut Thomsen, President Middle & Eastern Europe, SAP, and Fabrizia Benini, Head of Unit Digital Economy and Skills, European Commission answered multiple questions on teaching and learning online in the COVID reality, social aspects of implementing technology and last, but not least, kids and teens who need proper education to be ready to enter the job market in a few years.

“I am really happy we have BMI, the network of TechSoup, and Haus des Stiftens, so we can really scale up and accelerate. We have to come from different angles. It is not only school or university. It is all about collaboration between public, business and civil society. The more parties we have, the faster we can close the digital gap”
_{- Hartmut Thomsen, President Middle & Eastern Europe, SAP}

Thanks to multiple appearances from NGOs and other organizations around the Europe, such as German Hacker School, Romanian TechSaveThePlanet, Portuguese 42Lisboa or Slovenian Vsak Institute we had the opportunity to see different perspectives and various ideas on how coding, robotics and focusing on digital skills can help the society and can be a crucial driving force in changing the future.

“We have to ensure that all the Europeans from all the countries have the same chances. Especially during contemporary COVID pandemic.”
_{- Erwin Schwärzer, Head of Directorate at the Department of Digital Society and Digital Policy (BMI)}

Live stream of the event enabled hundreds of you witnessing our kick-off and being a part of the digital transformation that Meet and Code is so focused on. Thank you for empowering a generation with us!

WATCH THE OPENING EVENT


Interactive Workshops and Seminars

Second part of the day was constructed by 3 workshops that attracted more than 200 participants from 29 countries. 

We started off with an event - “How to go from offline to online”: online seminar for NGO led by Junge-Tueftler (Germany) - during which our hosts, Elisabeth and Susasanne, gave a short insight into the recently published guide, which contains a broad overview over the most important issues of running online seminars. 

Then “Tips and tricks on how to do great coding online events for children and youth” online seminar with CoderDojo Foundation led by Ana Stamatescu (Romania) took place. In this 1 hour meeting, 2 special guests from the CoderDojo Foundation - Sonja and Nuala, shared with us how to creatively code online and run a coding club, manage different types of online interactions. They also shared their favorite tools to make the online coding events even better.

We closed our event with an Interactive workshop around AI , led by Nvias from Czech Republic. AI workshop uncovered the potential of artificial intelligence in the form of project based teaching, summarized the basic knowledge of modern technologies using AI, explained the principles of functioning of three areas of machine learning – vision, speech and understanding. The practical part of the workshop included working with tools using artificial intelligence and building an AI startup company.


Two Months of Coding Has Just Started
However, this is just a beginning. By kicking off the Meet and Code 2020, we started two months of coding! This is the time when organizations that received our grant implement their ideas into life and allow thousands of kids and teens around Europe to improve their digital skills. Follow us to know more about 2020 online coding events happening all over Europe.

Do you want to join Meet and Code journey, get up to €500 grant and create an online event focused on coding, robotics and digital skills? You better hurry up, registration finishes in a week!