Member Article

Manchester's tech community supports National Coding Week

National Coding Week, the week-long event offering adults an insight into digital industries, returned to Manchester for the second time this week. With events planned up and down the country, National Coding Week gives adults an opportunity to learn how to write computer code, potentially opening the door to a new career.

Coding organisations across the UK have joined forces with the wider tech industry to support the initiative and run their own events. Some of the events to take place across Manchester included a Women in Tech event at Barclay’s Escalator, A Rasberry Pi workshop at MMU, and a coding support meet-up held by CodeUp Manchester at Building Blocks.

Manchester’s SpacePortX, the community driven tech co-working space was proud to support the initiative this year. Vimla Appadoo, from SpacePortx said: “It’s our pleasure to announce that we’re supporting National Coding week in September! It’s a great way of getting adults into coding, and showcases how easy it is to learn and what you can accomplish.

“We want to showcase all the amazing things that learning to code can do, and that it’s totally accessible for everyone. You don’t need to be a super computer whizz kid to learn and we want to show that!”

SpacePortX has worked with hubs across Manchester, including MadLab and Hello Work, to arrange the events and showcase what the city’s tech scene has to offer.

Shaun Gibson, Doug Ward and Martin Bryant, co-founded SpacePortX as a way of better aligning the tech and start-up communities, and they recently received government funding to open an eight-storey tech incubator space in the city centre, Forward.

Richard Rolfe, co-founder of National Coding Week, said: “I’m thrilled that Manchester’s digital community has pulled out all the stops for 2015! The key aims of National Coding Week are to encourage adults of any age to learn an element of computer coding, to encourage digital experts to share their skills, and to collaborate, share, learn and have fun! No matter what age you are, it’s never too late to code – I learnt age 51!”

Organisations supporting this year’s event elsewhere in the UK include Decoded, Women Who Code, Codeclan and International tech conference organisers Future Insights. The Welsh government and the Mayor of London also pledged their support to National Coding Week. This year’s event is sponsored by JT Group Global.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Damian Hanson .