The First BC Student Voice Codeathon

November 7, 2011

“Coding, what’s that?” I thought when I was invited to the first local Student Codeathon. I arrived at the BC Principals and Vice Principals office in Vancouver on Monday morning ready to learn something new. Armed with only my laptop and my creativity, I quickly realized that those were the only things I needed to embark on a day full of brainstorming, researching, innovating and accomplishing.

Exploring the world of coding, learning to harness raw data and then transforming it into something practical like a website or mobile application was something I never thought I could do until I attended the Student Codeathon!

With a group of other students, we collaborated to create an accessible, user-friendly way to help high school students apply for entrance scholarships into local post secondary institutions. This project was like hitting two birds with one stone for a grade 12 student such as myself! Not only were we creating a solution to a problem relevant to others my age, a difficulty finding postsecondary information quickly and in one place, but I was also able to learn more about the amazing educational opportunities offered right here close to home.

During my few hours at the Student Codeathon, we were we able to start our scholarship project which could potentially help hundreds of students continue their education, and we also met amazing people like the Minister George Abbot, members of the Ministry of Education and members of the Ministry of Labour, with whom we shared our ideas. We were also mentored by experienced programmers and software developers themselves, such as Luke Closs and David Eaves who started the Recollect application right here in Vancouver!

Pioneering into the world of coding opened a new world to me, that of discovering data and learning to use it efficiently in ways that could make a difference to my community.

- Dayah Johal, Grade 12, Hugh McRoberts Secondary, Richmond