A new initiative which helps homeless people and refugees to code is trying to reach a 拢20,000 funding goal on Kickstarter.
School of Code CEO Chris Meah told 老九品茶Cloud that the UK is facing a digital skills crisis.
鈥溊暇牌凡鑕s are desperately searching for technology talent, and there are great careers and prospects in the tech industry,鈥� he said.
鈥淏ut there simply aren鈥檛 enough programmers. Within the lack of numbers there is also a lack of diversity which highlights the narrow route into coding.
鈥淎t the same time there are huge levels of unemployment and people getting left behind and lacking digital skills education.
鈥淚 started the School of Code to make sure everyone has the chance to learn about technology, and remove the barriers people find when learning to code.
鈥淚t can be lonely, frustrating, boring, and lots of people quit and think it鈥檚 not for them.
鈥淏y making coding social we can embed support and motivation into the learning process, which widens the route and lets more people have fun with code.鈥�
At the time of writing, there are 56 hours to go on the crowdfunding campaign with almost 拢16,000 pledged.
School of Code is based in Birmingham and has a strong social conscience. Its online platform means anyone anywhere can get involved. They also run physical classes.
Meah added: 鈥淲e have a platform for schools which aims to help specifically 11-16 year olds with coding.
鈥淲e are also launching a general learner tool where anyone can log on and learn to code, getting help and support by teaming up with a coding buddy to tackle problems.
鈥淲e run a 鈥楥oding against homelessness鈥� class with Crisis, where we teach their members how to code a website from scratch with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
鈥淲ith Code Your Future, we are going to use our online multiplayer platform to help provide a platform for learning and remote mentoring so we can teach refugees coding skills and help get them into jobs.
鈥淓ntrepreneurial Spark have been amazing supporters of ours by taking us onto their accelerator program.鈥�
School of Code has also worked with the BBC and within tech hub Silicon Canal.