TECHKIDS EXPANDS ITS REACH DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND AND CALLS UPON INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS TO JOIN THIS WORTHY INITIATIVE

Passionate in grooming Sri Lanka’s next generation with capabilities to take the island into a new era of knowledge-based innovation and growth, Sri Lanka Association for Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM) has always dedicated itself to the cause of technology education for children.

As an initiative of the association’s Capacity Forum, TechKids has been one of the most influential children’s educational programmes that have instilled IT knowledge and developed a thirst for technology education among school kids.

Currently around 100 volunteers who are all top industry professionals with expertise and undergraduates of reputed universities from a variety of fields in technology, have been disseminating their knowledge and experience to school kids via TechKids code clubs.

Nishan Mendis Board Member of SLASSCOM stated “we recognize and thank our most?hard working volunteer TechKids facilitators of last year, Pamathi Gunarathne, Kohilavani Kandasamy, Savindu Liyanage, Abdul Hakeem, Saheen Ahamed, Sheshan Gamage, Raihana Muiza, Dimalsha Manawadu and Sampa Rasani for demonstrating their continuous commitment towards IT education of kids?and teaching thousands of kids to master coding skills via the TechKids code clubs. Their contribution has been immense, where they have successfully inspired many young minds to explore the field of coding and technology, gain an interest and a passion for these fields and trained them to be tech savvy individuals” .

Given the growing popularity of this program and more and more schools signing up for the program, the SLASSCOM Capacity Forum is now offering a free “train the trainer” programme for prospective volunteers who are interested in initiating code clubs at schools, villages and institutes via the TechKids initiative. Upon volunteering for a certain period of time, and based on their contribution towards the program, the volunteers will be recognized as Accredited TechKids Facilitators. Thereafter, the volunteers can even conduct paid programmes at private institutes as coding instructors.

Ashique M .Ali , the Vice Chairman of SLASSCOM said?“Our volunteers are at the heart of everything we do. We invite experienced industry professionals to join our mission and enrich the lives of kids across Sri Lanka by introducing them to powerful new technologies and giving them the confidence to build a better future. By supporting the SLASSCOM TechKids initiative you will be playing an integral role in harnessing the IT skills of school kids to build future technopreneurs required by the Sri Lankan IT industry.”

Those interested in joining hands with TechKids as facilitators to initiate code clubs, could write and email their details to Hasini Narangoda, programme manager of TechKids on [email protected]

SLASSCOM is partnered and supported for this initiative by their ?corporate sponsors Dialog Enterprise and HCL as well as the valued programme partner Royal Norwegian Embassy.