CoderKids is among the three winners of the MIA – Miss in Action competition, the acceleration program for women’s entrepreneurship supported by Digital Magics and BNP Paribas Group in Italy, sponsored by the Municipality of Milan.
Founder Federica Gambel tells InsuranceUp how startup courses work, the changes brought about by the Covid-19 outbreak and the projects for the future.
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CoderKids: the importance of learning how to code
“I’ve always been into digital and advisory. In four years I had three children: I couldn’t keep up with the routines anymore. A video, however, really helped me to understand the importance of coding,” said Gambel.
Nowadays CoderKids offers programming and coding courses designed for children from 8 to 16: “We are not going to train computer developers, our goal is to help them gain awareness with new technologies”. A fundamental element, which is long-term oriented: “85% of the work of the future has been proven not to exist yet. However, we know that some specific skills will be required, such as those related to digital”, stated Gambel.
CoderKids‘ courses therefore teach a way of thinking and problem-solving based on the computational approach: a mindset already in demand in many areas, from artificial intelligence to engineering, through graphics and social media.
Covid-19: what changed
Before the arrival of the Coronavirus outbreak, the startup collaborated with several schools – working both with children and teacher training – but also organized workshops and events with publishers, content creators and companies. Then, the Covid: “We were forced to move online and rely on distance learning,” explains the CEO. The experiment, however, turned out well: in fact, many parents were satisfied with the online lessons, also thanks to the reduced use of time and the avoidance of frequent travelling.
Throughout the summer the activities of CoderKids will continue online through live lessons with small groups and customized paths. The lessons are held daily and available from all over Italy: just a PC and an internet connection are enough. During the lessons the children can experience and unleash their creativity through a range of different activities: they learn how to create a video game, an application, how to move around digital storytelling and how to model the codes from different points of view.
Winning the MIA- Miss in Action 2020
CoderKids is among the three winning startups of the second edition of the MIA – Miss in Action 2020 contest, organized by the incubator Digital Magics and BNP Paribas Group in Italy to promote female entrepreneurship, sponsored by the Municipality of Milan.
After the announcement on May 25th, today CoderKids has just concluded the mentoring part followed by Digital Magics: “It was very useful to us, we had the opportunity to meet strong professionals and clarify our ideas on what we did” added Gambel, who then shifts the attention to extremely topical issues: “The MIA has also spurred us to explore the field of distance learning courses. So we turned the Covid-19, which could have been a big problem for our activities, into opportunities”. And it’s working.
The future between quality and communication
In the future, Gambel aims to further improve the quality of the services offered by CoderKids: “We want to keep on doing what we like, carry on all our activities and be able to find a keystone for distance learning,” he says. However, it is also essential to maintain high standards in terms of student numbers (courses must take place in small groups) and live classes.
It is also important to raise awareness of the importance of coding: “It is often difficult to make parents understand what it means to learn how to code”, explained Gambel to InsuranceUp. On the subject of digital literacy, in fact, there is still a lot of work to be done, both conceptually and in terms of communication.
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