Coding is the backbone of just about everything we do in today’s digitized world. From the way we live and learn to the ways we conduct research, do business, create, and interact with each other, zillions of lines of code make it all come together. But beyond the bits and bytes lies an even more important aspect: coding teaches us to think differently and enables us to solve complex problems in innovative ways, better collaborate and prepare our kids for tomorrow’s challenges.

At Microsoft, we believe that by giving computer science and by extension, coding, the attention it deserves we can help to instil the knowledge required for current and future generations to thrive in a digital world, and advance Europe’s economy. As a matter of fact, the number of digital jobs in Europe is growing by more than 100,000 per year and, by 2020, 90% of all jobs will require digital skills. In other words, it’s becoming vital to fluently “speak” code in the 21st century.

“Digital skills are life skills. Learning to code teaches essential abilities such as computational and abstract thinking and it is just one of a wide range of digital competencies which can help Europe’s children grow their creativity, flexibility and problem-solving skills.”

Sylvie Laffarge, Director Citizenship Europe, Microsoft

As Europe Code Week kicks off, thousands of events are taking place all across Europe to celebrate the importance of coding and put computer programming on top of Europe’s digital agenda. To join the celebration and add to the efforts, we’re planning coding events in 14 European countries, including coding sessions, workshops, roundtables, debates and festivities.

Have a look at the details below to see some of the upcoming highlights and follow us on Twitter as we will be tweeting and posting more news about our activities throughout the week. Stay tuned!

We are hosting a high-level event at our Executive Briefing Center in Brussels on October 12th. The event will gather representatives from the European Commission, Ministries of Education, ICT companies and the civil society, along with young people and entrepreneurs, joining together as advocates for teaching and learning how to code both in formal and non-formal learning environments: at home, in school, at work, and in the wider community. Don Grantham, Microsoft’s President of Central & Eastern Europe will provide the opening remarks.

In collaboration with Emakina, we will also be supporting a coding hackathon in Brussels. During this event, students, developers and UX/designers are invited to team up and show what they are capable of delivering in one weekend, by producing an IoT app with Microsoft technologies. The workshop kicks off on October 16th and will last until Sunday the 18th.

Online registration to the EBC event is mandatory. Register here and check out the full agenda of the event here.

More info about the Hackathon can be found here: emakina.be/hackhathon

On October 14th, we will be organizing a training workshop entitled “Building Windows apps for the better future”. The workshop aims to train ICT teachers interested in learning how to develop apps for Windows 10.

From October 11th to the 17th we are also supporting  Startup Pirates in Riga. The goal here is to help young entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality though coaching and mentoring.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft Latvia Facebook and Twitter pages.

On October 12th, we will be hosting a roundtable with key industry and government stakeholders focusing on the role coding plays in the Czech Republic. The roundtable will be accompanied by a hands-on workshop aimed at showcasing our popular learn-to-code tools Kodu Game Lab and Microsoft Touch Develop.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft Czech Republic Facebook page.

On October 16th, we will be hosting a coding workshop on the Microsoft campus in Tallin. The event will bring together both Microsoft employees, Microsoft Student Partners, NGO partners and students, and the goal is to translate the hourofcode.com website into Estonian and practice web-based coding.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft Estonia Facebook page

On October 16th we’ll be hosting a workshop focusing on app development for Windows 10. The workshop will be held at the Rade Koncar high school in Belgrade.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft Serbia Twitter account: @MicrosoftSrbija

To celebrate the European Code Week, we’ve partnered up with Hack Tues and invited around 120 students from the country’s best IT high schools to join our “Environmental & Social Development” hackathon from October 9th to 11th. We will also be supporting the Code Week-Vratsat involving more than 400 pupils and students.

More info: Check out the Microsoft Bulgaria Facebook and Twitter pages.

On October 14th and 15th, we’re inviting children and their parents to a series of CoderDojo events in our premises in Athens.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft Hungary Twitter page.

In collaboration with IVSZ (the ICT Association of Hungary) there will be several activities throughout the European Code Week. This includes a Kodu launch event, a press conference focusing on the importance of coding and computer science in Hungary and a “Hello World Game” introducing children to programming.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft Hungary Twitter page.

On October 10th, Stephen Howell, Academic Engagement Manager at Microsoft Ireland, will be speaking to more than 1,000 students about programming games for Kinect using Advanced Scratch at the CoderDojo “MegaDojo” event in Limerick, Ireland. The aim of the event is to get kids excited about Science and Technology.

On October 14th, we will be partnering with CoderDojo in Dublin to host an evening of coding for approximately 50 students.

More info: Follow the Microsoft Ireland Twitter account.

On October 10th, we kick the European Code week with a session organized by CodeWeek Netherlands at the NEMO Science Center. The event will include representatives from both business, education, media and government sectors, as well as CodePact partners. The aim with the session is to discuss the importance of coding and how private and public sectors can collaborate to help develop 21st century skills.

On October 13th, we will be hosting a coding workshop at our premises in Amsterdam. We’re inviting children and parents to discover different coding tools, and learn how to program connected devices such as robots and drones.

On Wednesday 14th of October and in partnership with Ziggo, we will be hosting a coding workshop for Parliament members in the Dutch Parliament. Young coders will get a chance to demonstrate their coding talents to Parliament members and teach them how to code.

We will also be increasing our weekly CodeUur training sessions in schools during Europe Code Week.

More info: Keep an eye on Microsoft Netherlands Twitter page.

We will be hosting 19 interactive coding workshops across 10 different locations throughout the European Code Week, including sessions with robots for our youngest coders. We are also organizing a coding workshop at our premises for government and education representatives.

More info: Check out Microsoft Poland’s Facebook page.

This year’s Europe Code Week takes place during the Maker Faire in Rome (16th-18th October), and to make the most out of these two major events, we are inviting more than 2,500 young students from Rome to coding sessions on the schools-only day of the Maker Faire.

More info? Check out the Microsoft Italy Twitter page.

From October 12th to 16th, we are hosting 25 workshops for initiation into digital culture & coding in 10 cities across the country, in partnership with Simplon, a Microsoft France YouthSpark grantee. Approximately 600 children are expected to participate in these workshops.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft France Twitter page.

On October 15th, we’ll be hosting a YouthSpark live event “Creative Coding and Gamification” that will take place at the Microsoft Berlin offices. One of the focuses during the workshop will be working with Minecraft and we’re expecting over 60 students from the Berlin Metropolitan School to attend.

More info: Keep an eye on the Microsoft Germany Twitter page.

#codeeu Tweets

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