The Return of National Coding Week

Wednesday 17 August 2016

National Coding Week is set to return for its third year, encompassing the whole digital journey. The week-long series of events, sponsored again this year by JT, aims to encourage adults to try their hand at digital skills from learning the basics of coding and app development, to digital design and online marketing.

Taking place from Monday, September 19th to Friday September 23rd, National Coding Week offers the opportunity of free-to-attend training sessions for anybody who is interested in understanding how to embrace digital skills. Its ‘crowd sourced’ approach to sharing knowledge means the success of the week rests on passionate computer programmers, developers and digital professionals who are willing to give something back to the digital community and host their own events.

National Coding Week was launched by Jersey based business Codex to create opportunities for school leavers, job seekers and retirees around the UK/CI, to develop skills and engage and encourage employers to offer employment opportunities to newly trained individuals. 

This event will fall just a couple of months after The Science and Technology Committee in the UK published its June warning the public about the ever-growing ‘digital skills crisis.’ The Committee Chair, Nicola Blackwood MP said: “The UK leads Europe on tech, but we need to take concerted action to avoid falling behind.”

One of the key aspects of creating Jersey’s vision for the digital opportunity – already considered a centre of digital excellence and innovation – is to build on important digital skills and competencies. With a world-wide skill shortage, National Coding Week provides a foundation for the Island to be able to compete internationally and helps raise awareness of this vital skill for the future and current workforce. 

Co-Founder of National Coding Week, Richard Rolfe, explained that plans are in place to extend the reach of the campaign this year drawing on the success of the previous two years. 

He said: “National Coding Week 2016 is really shaping up to be the biggest year yet, with an all-encompassing schedule of events to appeal to anyone. We’ve got some very exciting organisations involved in the week including Switch Digital, Web Reality, C5 and The Observatory just to name a few, as well as of course our sponsor JT. Whether you would like to understand more on how to build a website, or write your first few lines of code, then come along to one of the events to find out how.

“We are really proud of how National Coding has been embraced globally and last year we saw support and engagement from many high profile public figures from Prince Andrew to Boris Johnson. This year we want to build on that success with even more events and we are grateful to our main sponsors JT for their on-going support to help us make this happen. We’re delighted to have access to the expertise and global reach of JT as we look to take National Coding Week to other towns and cities, and indeed new continents to encourage development of coding skills among wider audiences.”

Tamara O’Brien, JT Head of Marketing, Brand and Distribution, said: “We have supported National Coding Week since its inception and we are very pleased to be continuing this commitment and helping Richard and his team in encouraging digital skills among new audiences. These events have had a very positive impact on communities up and down the UK, as well as in the Channel Islands. JT will be officially launching National Coding Week by hosting a first course, led by Richard Rolfe, at our offices on Grenville Street in Jersey. The rise of digital technologies and changing behaviours have fundamentally changed the business landscape and workplace. As this transformation continues to accelerate, JT are really pleased to be involved in this important project which helps equip people with the skills they need.”