Davao startup seeks to teach all kids how to code

If Hackademy had its way, all Filipino kids would be programming computers at an early age.

 

The non-government organization is on a mission to hopefully teach high school students all over Davao to code for free in order to make them job-ready by the time they graduate from high school.

 

Hackademy, a side project of a Davao-based start-up company, started their first coding bootcamp last June 20. For two weeks selected Grade 9 and Grade 10 students from the Philippine Science High School Mindanao Campus. During the bootcamp, the kids are taught everything from programming using Python, coming up with their own start-up ideas, pitching and developing their ideas. The start-up hopes to eventually expand their curriculum and partnerships with more schools, public school being the priority, to create more job ready high school graduates in the near future.

 

 

John Naranjo, founder of Hackademy, created this social enterprise in response to the demands of the Philippine ICT industry. 

 

“Most of our graduates are not job ready,’ says Naranjo. “Our schools can’t catch up with the technological changes. It takes too long for colleges and universities to catch up.” They hope that by teaching high school students to code early on, they would have more options on whether they go to college.

 

There’s no shortage of schools in the Philippines teaching short courses in programming and there are even free online resource available to teach anyone how to code. Hackademy hope to do better by having actual developers teach the students how to code. “Our mentors are actual developers who are passionate about education. So the students learn what it’s really like to code from practicing professionals.”

 

Victor Sapar, the business manager for Hackademy, says that they are currently working on projects with various partners to spread Hackademy all over Davao. Their goal, he claims, is to make the project sustainable by running it like a start-up. They also plan to create modules to give students more options on what they want to specialize in. For now they are focusing on Python because, “it’s our forte,” says Naranjo. Sapar adds, “but eventually we want to look into mobile development, web development, project management, entrepreneurship, etc.” — TJD, GMA News