Chaos
As
parents toil over long work days, children often go unsupervised. The adult
drama would often roll over into children’s lives as relationships soured,
fights took place, employment statuses changed… As chaos emerged as a
persistent theme in these children’s lives, it is unsurprising that plans are
unheard of. In fact, many are pushed into rental housing due to “deteriorating
family ties – divorce, abandonment or strained relationships” and stairwells
lurking with drunks, drug abusers and loan sharks.
The
challenge posed to us is then: How do we systematically, sustainably encourage these children to
create with technology? How can we help them chart a better course forward,
within constraints and given the particular challenges of their situation?
Scarcity
People
lead intensely claustrophobic lives due to big family sizes and may eat as
little as a meal, or none, through the day.
Such
scarcity wields a powerful influence over behaviour. When resources are scarce,
people are more predisposed to compete than to cooperate; when there is little
social contact between neighbours, people are more predisposed to be aloof than
to adopt prosocial behaviours.
That’s a
phenomenon well-documented by psychologists: if the mind is focused on one
thing, other abilities and skills—attention, self-control, and long-term
planning—often suffer. Like a computer running multiple programs, Mullainathan
and Shafir explain, our mental processors begin to slow down. We don’t lose any
inherent capacities, just the ability to access the full complement ordinarily
available for use.
But
what’s most striking—and in some circles, controversial—about their work is not
what they reveal about the effects of scarcity. It’s their assertion that
scarcity affects anyone in its grip.
Their
argument: qualities often considered part of someone’s basic
character—impulsive behaviour, poor performance in school, poor financial
decisions—may, in fact, be the products of a pervasive feeling of scarcity. And
when that feeling is constant, as it is for people mired in poverty, it
captures and compromises the mind. (Source: http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/05/the-science-of-scarcity)
Fear
In this
context, it is hardly surprising that there is an underlying current of
pervasive fear. Fear of betrayal, fear of trying, fear of being ridiculed or
laughed at. While most children may have parents, teachers and other adults
pushing them on, urging them to keep trying if not telling them that they are
the centre of the world, kids growing up in disadvantaged families enjoy no
such cushion. Lack of supervision often means that they have to learn to take
care of themselves and younger siblings from a young age, all while trying to
grasp academic work that can oftentimes feel far-removed from their daily
experiences.
This fear
holds people back, and they dare not tread on to newer grounds that may provide
more fertile pastures for their talents. In practical terms, this means that
our coding classes are not just about technicalities and the mechanics of
making an app, but getting these children to believe in their abilities to
create as well. And
why might coding classes for children from disadvantaged families be necessary
rather than a luxury you ask?
Why
Coding?
Research
from OECD “found that richer teenagers were more likely to use the internet to
search for information or to read news rather than to chat or play video
games.” Computing costs have never been cheaper and information has never been
more accessible, the critical bottleneck when it comes to unleashing digital
opportunities for growth and innovation has been the missing analogue
foundation of education and awareness.
In an age
of fermenting populist fury at digital disruptions and widening inequality, the
way forward cannot be a retreat to tribal enclaves but to forge a more
inclusive globalisation and to enhance access to opportunities – and coding is
a critical pillar of that since the ability to communicate with machines is the
new literacy that is richly rewarded in our Information Age.
Technology,
or rather the lack of effective use of it, is a source of much inequality.
Without proper guidance, kids fall prey to games and entertainment when they
could be making their own games instead. Hence, learning to code holds the key to closing up
the gap of the digital divide.
Code-a-Thon
is a learning-intensive hackathon experience where beginners and experienced
coders, designers and business people alike come together to develop app
prototypes under the theme of Technopreneurship for Gender Equality in 2017.
This
extended experience takes participants through a kick-off weekend, followed by
a period of ongoing consultations/mentorship with local mentors until they
finally submit their entries online for judging.
Our Lead
Sponsors are the U.S. State Department under its Young Southeast Asian Leaders
Initiative and the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council.
Why
Take Part?
● Code for change!
● Build your portfolio and learn new
transferable skills with industry mentors
● Receive feedback from esteemed judges
● Win prizes and/or media mention!
Who
can take part?
Whether
you are a complete newbie or a hacker, your entries will be judged
holistically… We offer 2 separate judging tracks for you to compete in teams of
2-5:
● Pre-university
● University
Anyone
from outside of these categories are more than welcomed to join EXCEPT that:
● You will not be eligible for certain
sponsor prizes
● No team should have 50% or more of its
members from outside of the track that they have chosen to participate in
When
is it?
City #codeathon
kick-off
Singapore 18-19
March 2017
Hanoi 22-23
July 2017
Ho Chi Minh TBA
Jakarta TBA
Kuala Lumpur 12-13
August 2017
Bangkok TBA
Denpasar TBA
Brunei TBA
Yangon TBA
Penang 25-26
November 2017
Suzhou TBA
Manila 7- 8 October
2017
Hangzhou TBA
Nanjing TBA
Beijing TBA
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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