Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) hosted a very special CoderDojo event last week which celebrated 50 years of DkIT and the 10-year anniversary of CoderDojo.

CoderDojo is a movement orientated around running free not-for-profit coding clubs and regular sessions for young people aged between 7-17 years old. At a CoderDojo session, young people learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and more. Dojos are set up, run by and taught by volunteers. CoderDojo makes development and learning to code a fun & sociable experience.

Approximately 60 ninjas participated in the event and DkIT also welcomed back a number of past mentors for the occasion. DkIT were delighted and honoured to be joined by mentors from the Monaghan CoderDojo and Mr David Hodge from MTU, who is the lead on the national DojoMor event in which DkIT is a partner. David also co-ordinates Vex Robotics. On the day the ninjas participated in coding sessions on Animation, Scratch, Web Design - HTML, and Vex. The ninjas also enjoyed our Dojo pizza-run, and for this special anniversary session celebrated with cake and party bags. DkIT took the opportunity to acknowledge the work of mentors (past and present), staff, students, graduates and industry partners and the Institute also gave special gratitude to the DkIT leads, Dr Michelle Graham, who started the DkIT CoderDojo in 2012 and Mr Peter Gosling who has been the driving force behind CoderDojo DkIT for the last number of years.

Our next Dojo session will take place in September - in the meantime, watch out for our Computing Summer Camps (July – August 2022).