Google teams up with the Sun for Code Camp initiative
The Sun newspaper and Google have joined forces to open a ‘Code Camp’ at Google’s London HQ in a bid to encourage youths into gaining coding skills.
Campaign: The Sun will raise coding awareness in its pages
The partnership will also raise an awareness campaign for parents to help them better understand coding in order to support their children’s development. The Code Camp initiative will also give one student the chance to visit Google in San Francisco.
The move comes ahead of the inclusion of coding in the school curriculum this September for children aged between five and 16.
David Dinsmore, editor of the Sun – which will run a number of features about the importance of coding – said: “Britain has a thriving software industry and some of the most innovative technology companies in the world, but the number of British young people working in these companies is declining.
“Coding is now an essential skill for nearly all industries and the Sun is proud to be spearheading an initiative that will help bring through the next generation of Tim Berners-Lees.”
According to Mark Warriner, director of engineering at Google, efforts in the sector are necessary to prevent the UK’s digital skills gap widening.
“From the invention of the computer to the world wide web and the TV, Britain has always been a cradle of invention,” he said. “Even today, the software, app and gaming industries are creating jobs at a record rate.
“But we’re not as good as we once were,” he warned. “The number of students studying computer science is declining and we risk falling behind. We hope this campaign will inspire more young people about what they can do with code and help to make innovation part of Britain’s future, as well as its past.”
Concerns about the UK’s workforce lacking in the necessary skills to help the digital economy progress have persisted in recent times, and Google has previously been involved in educational initiatives.