MEP Kelly congratulates CoderDojo on European Citizen’s Prize

Seán Kelly MEP (Ireland South) has congratulated CoderDojo, an Irish organisation of free coding clubs for youngsters originating in Cork, on receiving the prestigious European Citizen’s Prize at a the official European Parliament prize-giving ceremony in Brussels this week. The European Citizen’s Prize was presented to Giustina Mizzoni, Executive Director of Coder Dojo (pictured) by the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz.

The voluntary coding clubs for youth is this year’s Irish recipient of the prize and was nominated by MEP Kelly for inspiring thousands of children to expand their knowledge through technology and entrepreneurship by joining the non-profit clubs. Mr Kelly had the honour of awarding the group the prestigious medal in Dublin last week.

“In 2013, I hosted the first ever EU Dojo event in the European Parliament.  At the time, CoderDojo was little over one year old and was active in 10 member states. Now, there are over 1,010 clubs in 65 countries, 750 of those clubs are Europe-based. That’s remarkable growth,” Mr Kelly said in praising the CoderDojo initiative, which was co-founded in by James Whelton and Bill Liao in Cork.

Mr Kelly and CoderDojo will host the annual EUDojo in the Parliament next week (18 October) – a highly successful collaboration which involves young coders teaching MEPs how to write code as part of EU Code Week 15-23 October. EU Code Week runs across all 28 Member States in order to promote coding for all ages and build awareness of the importance of digital skills.