More than 100 young people, among them patrons from 26 City libraries, participated in the Coding4Mandela event at the City Hall on Tuesday 18 July.
The event, spearheaded by Tangible Africa, was the showpiece of the “unplugged” coding initiative that saw the top teams do battle on the day.
Goodwood Library was one of the libraries to participate in the coding initiative and according to the children’s librarian at Goodwood Library, Robin Smith, there is now a bigger interest in the library coding programme.
“Coding is relatively new to Goodwood library and the children who participated in the programme are new to coding as well. It was both an innovative and fun experience. It has also brought more children to the library. So, in future the coding team will grow into something more,” says Smith.
Smith explained that it was a fair competition as everyone was playing against the clock, rather than against each other. Those who have been coding for longer were able to code much faster as opposed to the rest. “Overall, the children were excited for the day, and they had fun regardless of the results. They all worked together as a team and solved their coding problems together,” Smith said.
Ocean View Library walked away the winners of the tournament, with Excelsior High School in second place and Valhalla Park Library’s second team in third.
Coding tests a variety of abilities and hones analytical skills such as finding errors and thinking logically.
Participants had to work in teams, which also enhanced their interpersonal and collaboration skills.
“This is a phenomenal undertaking, and I am so excited that our libraries had an opportunity to be a part of it. I hope to see many more of our libraries sign up in the future so that we can help develop young minds and shape futures. I want to thank all of the partners for including the City of Cape Town – unplugged coding is a tangible way of making a difference in the lives of our patrons, irrespective of age, and the fact that it can break through the barriers to access such as data or top-of-the-range electronic devices is something to applaud. I hope that this initiative will see more participants signing up, and coding becoming a regular feature at all of our libraries,” says Mayco member for community services and health, Councillor Patricia van der Ross.
- To find out more about coding in your region, contact info@levafoundation.org.
