Published: Fri, 30 September 2016
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Seán Kelly MEP (Ireland South) had the honour of presenting CoderDojo with the prestigious European Citizen’s Prize at a special Irish prize-giving ceremony in Dublin this week (Thursday).
The voluntary organisation of 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.
“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.
The European Citizen’s Prize medal was presented to Giustina Mizzoni, Executive Director of Coder Dojo on Thursday. The global organisation will also take part in the official EU Citizen’s Prize ceremony to be held in the European Parliament in Brussels in October.