Keywords: children, digital technologies, education, STEM

Coderdojo Summercamp is a yearly camp for kids in the age of 7-17 where they get the chance to learn programming, test new technology and meet some of the companies in the Science Park. The project leader and the coaches at the camp are students from Linkoping University.

For one week 50 kids learn programming in different subjects: games, apps and robots. During the week they work with their own project that they present on the last day of the camp. They also visit Linkopings Makerspace and some of the companies in Science Park Mjärdevi. Many companies at Science Park Mjärdevi are struggling to find and attract talent, especially programmers are hard to find. This is not only a problem in Linkoping but in the whole of Sweden, in the coming 4 years Sweden needs more than 60,000 new programmers. And according to the European Commission, Europe will need 1,000 000 programmers in 2020. In Sweden programming is not on the average schedule at school, so kids dont get the change to try it. By arranging Coderdojo Summercamp we want to inspire kids in an early stage and make them digital rock stars with knowledge in programming. Also, women are underrepresented amongst programmers today. We believe that diversity is a key factor for a companys success. Therefore, at Coderdojo Summercamp 50% of the spots are for girls and 50% are for boys. By doing this we hope that even more girls would like to try programming. The camp welcomes all children in Linkoping, to also give those who maybe not have the economic resources a chance to participate, we have 10 spots that are reserved for Stangastadens (a Real Estate owner in Linkopings) tenants. They participate for a lower fee.

Coderdojo https://coderdojo.com is an organization that exist it many different countries, usually the groups meet twice a month for a few hours. By arranging a one week camp the kids have a change to work with a bigger project together with other programmers and meet other kids with the same interests. By being in the Science Park during the day, they also have the possibility to visit some of the companies. By meeting companies and their employees and the coaches of the camp, we give them a chance to find a role model and someone who can inspire them. Hopefully this leads to more people wanting to study and work as developers.

For the past two years a total of 100 kids had the opportunity to try programming at Coderdojo Summercamp. The spots for the camp runs out in just a few minutes. Coderdojo has an active organization in the region of East Sweden, these meet-ups also run out of places really quickly. By arranging Coderdojo Summercamp we reach more kids and also those who not have participated at the evening events. Right now, we are planning a big camp for next summer there we would like to offer 400-500 kids the possibility to participate, because the demand is much bigger than only 50 places each summer.

The main users of Coderdojo Summercamp are the companies in Science Park Mjärdevi, both by hosting study visits for the participants but also though the summercamp works for a better labor market in the future. The students at Linkoping University are also users, as they have a relevant summer job.