Code Zone 2021  started on Monday August 2, 2021 and it was clearly on a higher level from previous editions which held in 2019 and 2020, this holiday summer coding Program for Teens and Preteens rounded up on August 31, 2021 after 22 days of intense training of participants between the ages of 10 to 16years.

This year’s edition was quite exciting and  intense for us as organizers as we had to manage both In-person and Virtual classes  at the same time. We had 3 classes hold simultaneously and for ease of administration and  identification of the students we named each class after Programmers:

• In- person Class for HTML & CSS  we named Team Babbage
• Virtual Class for HTML & CSS we named Team Malvat
• Virtual Class for JavaScript we named Team Eich

In line with our practice each participant had to apply their learning in their area of interest which we have come to appreciate that it makes assimilation easier for all participants. The areas of interest showcased through the presentations of these young ones were Soccer, Fashion, Books, Music, Games, Aviation, Movies, Travel, ecommerce and Lifestyle. The amazing display of creativity by the children through their choice of images, page layout and colour combination among other things made the guests go wow!

One of the many things that continues to give us joy on the project are those moments when these children write their  code and it works, the joy that exudes from within them cannot be bought, here  are some moments in pictures, most of our of the participants had no clue on what coding was like before they got on the program, in all there were 22 participants

The Program was concluded on with presentations from  members of each team, the beauty of the presentation for us is that beyond the coding that the kids have learnt and want to showcase, its an opportunity for them to develop the confidence to face an audience, they also get to take questions and most importantly get feedback on their work so they can improve on it if they choose to go further.

‘The success for this year can first be attributed to God and the amazing efforts of the volunteer instructors namely Ifeanyi Chiemeke, Michael Umoren and Biose Isichei. It’s  also a good opportunity to say thank you to parents that registered their children as well as individuals who sponsored the registrations of a number of children and overall the Emerald Zone team that ensure all the behind the scenes activities move successfully; Said Mrs Akinloye Olufunke

Feedback from parents have been positively overwhelming and captured for future reference, we also got a couple of mentions in the papers

Code Zone is an annual program powered by Emerald Zone with the mission of helping the young ones acquire coding skills at little or no cost in order to prepare them as they grow into the world where technology takes the lead.