Code for All Heading this Way

Catherine Bracy speaking at Leanstartup. Photo by Jakub Mosur on Flickr

Saw an excellent presentation yesterday by Catherine Bracy at the LeanStartup Conference in San Francisco. She explained about the global expansion of Code for America into Code for All. It's all about Learning What Schools Don't Teach. Desperately needed in most of Europe as far as I can see. I know the European commission and some cities support some school initiatives, but this campaign is much bolder and better orchestrated.



I notice that Germany is just about to launch, and Ireland had a soft-launch of their new group in Dublin a few weeks back. In Europe we talk about the importance of teaching code - but usually leave it at just that.

Inaugural meeting of Code for All Ireland

Rather cool to get Bill Gates to explain what an IF statement is all about. He does it rather well. Much better than those rather forced lectures at CES years ago.



or Mark Zuckerberg on writing a repeat.




Compare all of the above to the Code for Europe initiative. It might have all the backing from several companies, but the story is nothing like as strong. That's because these volunteers are focused on capturing an event rather than grabbing the essence of the story.



This needs work. Whereas the video below just cannot compare to Code for America.

Commons4EU - explaining Code for Europe and BuB for Europe initiatives through their fellows. from Commons4EU on Vimeo.