A Growth Engine for Europe

The Faculty of Computer and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana aims to demonstrate the importance of teaching computational thinking, by organising summer schools, workshops and other events. The Faculty struggles to run continuous activities due to a lack of stable financing, and financial help provided by Google has proved invaluable.

Google co-sponsored EU Code Week, an event where people from all generations had the opportunity to immerse themselves in computer science – seven-year-old children learned how to code in Scratch, high-school students controlled room lights via their phones through a web interface running on Raspberry Pis, while adults had the chance to learn programming just for the fun of it. The number of applicants for EU Code Week greatly exceeded expectations: the Faculty had to close submissions for the seven to 18-year-old category in just two days; for the Django Girls programming workshop, there were 550 applications for 90 places; and 60 adults took part in the free three-day programming course. As well as a positive response from the few hundred participants, there was also great media coverage on the event remarking that computer science is interesting, fun and for everyone. Professor Janez Demšar from the University comments: “I love seeing students get that Eureka moment.”

Google’s CS4HS also helped the Faculty kick-start its makerspace. This program targets 12 to 18-year-olds, who often see science, technology, engineering and mathematics as uncool subjects. The Faculty developed several activities and tested them out on a few groups. It aimed to show students that being creators of technology is much cooler than being mere consumers. It is also educating teachers to take a similar approach in schools. All materials developed by the Faculty are published on the web site under a public copyright (CC) licence.