Programming for kids: Coding has no age limits

Recently, I visited Düsseldorf’s first coding kindergarten. It’s our new “Seepferdchen” day-care centre. I was there with my Ex-Co colleague Bettina Karsch to officially kick-off the first code writing courses for kindergarten-age kids. Some of you are probably thinking that kids don’t need to understand how computers work to use them. And many people have negative associations with the words “code writing” and “programming”.

Many believe coding is only about mathematical recipes, binomial source codes and endless columns of zeros and ones.

The next thing that comes to their mind is an individual hammering a computer keyboard in a dark room surrounded by pizza boxes. These preconceptions and stereotypes are outdated and wrong. We all have to work together to eliminate them. Kids should be taught how to write code. Anyone of any age – from kindergarten and primary school kids, to high school graduates, middle-aged people and pensioners can do it.

Our pre-school facilities perform the task of preparing kids for “real life” at school. Today, that involves more than just providing them with a basic understanding of measures, numbers and letters. Or exploring environments and learning social skills.

Code writing is an indispensable skill that people need to be active rather than passive consumers in the digital age.

The younger we are when we learn this skill the better equipped we will be. The digital transformation is changing society and revolutionising business processes. To continue playing an active role in the future, we have to teach our youngsters the key concepts that are essential to understanding the networked world in which they are growing up. We have to equip our kids for the digital future. That's why a digital education is essential. Not as a niche subject, but as part of the general curriculum 4.0. Think about it this way:

Not every child that learns to write will become an author. And not every child that learns how to write code will become a programmer.

The aim is to give every child basic code writing skills. Journalist Richard Gutjahr compares programming to Latin to explain why it is a key future skill. Children don’t learn Latin so they can order pizza, but to get a better feeling for languages. And that's why it’s equally important for people to learn programming.

Our new coding kindergarten will be teaching children to control and navigate the “Bee Bot” with simple commands. They’ll also knead easy items and use simple commands to illuminate them.

Kids literally learn programming through play.

Teenagers learn differently, so we took a different approach with the some 20 young women aged 15 to 18 who attended our coding summer camp at the Vodafone Campus last summer. They learned how to programme at the computer, but were also encouraged to work as a team and share ideas. We’ve even introduced code writing courses for staff at our sites throughout Germany to get them fit for the digital age.

Code writing is also a skill that Germany’s top executives should learn. If they want to preach digital, they have to abandon analogue and embrace digital.

That’s why all our executives here at Vodafone are also learning about code writing. We were recently taught how to programme apps by our younger colleagues, who threw us into the digital deep end. The journey has been, is, and will be exciting for every single one of us. I can’t wait…