10,000 expected at CoderDojo Coolest Projects awards at RDS

More than 800 young innovators from across Europe will take part in the fifth annual CoderDojo Coolest Projects Awards at the RDS on Saturday, when more than 10,000 spectators are expected to take in demonstrations of the apps, websites, animation, games, and robots among this year’s submissions.

The event, launch yesterday, was attended by some of Ireland’s brightest young innovators, including Lexi Schoene, 8, who has entered the blog/website category with her site lexililybelle.com, where she blogs on her life and interests across a range of platforms.

“I used the HTML and coding skills I learned at CoderDojo Dun Laoghaire to design my website using Wordpress,” she said.

Dhruv Bhamidipati, 11, created his website Dino-Know-It-All to educate people about dinosaurs, using HTML and CSS coding learned at The Docklands Dojo.

Harvey Brezina Conniffe, 14, from The Warehouse Dojo in Dublin has created an online editor that helps children design their own website.

He also designed an app that enables homeowners to check in on their personal security cameras by tweeting them — a project that was featured at SXSW and TechCrunch Disrupt NY.

Behid the scenes of our launch of @coolestprojects and @launchdio at @dogpatchlabs today #CoderDojo #Roboto pic.twitter.com/5UjmFSCeb2

— ☯CoderDojo☯ (@CoderDojo) March 29, 2016

Animator Grainne Meghan, 12, from CoderDojo Dun Laoghaire created Mob Show: the race for the last cookie, a quirky Minecraft-inspired animation using Swift.

The awards offer children the opportunity to showcase the skills they have learned at CoderDojo and other coding clubs.

“Coolest Projects provides the bridge from learning coding skills at CoderDojos to innovating and creating future employment. We are the piece in the middle which makes the connection,” said Coolest Projects co-founder Noel King.

“These digital skills are vital if Europe is to address the coding skills shortage which has led to 500,000 open job postings across the region in 2015,” he said.

Don't forget to book your tickets for #CoolestProjects and @launchdio here: https://t.co/RJRGJNUrv5 pic.twitter.com/YKFNt2NVT1

— Coolest Projects (@CoolestProjects) March 29, 2016

There are Coolest Projects Awards across a range of age groups in the disciplines of websites, apps, animation and games, scratch, advanced languages, enterprise and hardware.

This year also sees the addition of Launch’d, a one-day event aimed at supporting the next generation of technology entrepreneurs.

Running in parallel with Coolest Projects, it will feature Ireland’s 100 top tech starts-ups and international speakers, in what organisers claim will be the biggest technology event held in Ireland this year.