With the occurance of coronavirus pandemic, we moved our trainings to online platform and from April on we have given online coding trainings to more than 10.000 children. In addition to this, our participant children made us so proud with the success they gained. A group of our students from Adana, who participated in our project, became the world champion in MakeX Robotics Competition, one of the most prestigious robotics competitions in the world. The other group of our students from Kayseri, developed the idea of a food machine working with code for street animals. Together with Vodafone Turkey Foundation, we were proud to realize their idea. By enriching our digital contents, next year we will be continuing to prepare our children for the digital future through carrying our coding trainings to 70 thousand more children.

As Habitat Association, we came together with the trainers of the Coding Tomorrow Project in the first volunteer coordination meeting of year 2021. During our volunteer coordination meeting that we organized online due to the conditions of coronavirus pandemic with the slogan of #VolunteersInConnection, we had stimulating conversations with our esteemed guests. The first day of our volunteer coordination meeting that we realized on February 13-14, 2021, was broadcasted live on Youtube. The second day continued with the participation of our volunteer project trainers via Zoom platform. The first day started with the “Coding: The Language of The Future” session, in which Habitat Association Board Chairman Sezai Hazır, Vodafone Turkey Foundation Board Chairman Hasan Süel and Ministry of National Education YEGİTEK Managing Director Anıl Yılmaz participated. In this session, the general process of the Coding Tomorrow Project and the importance of coding trainings were mentioned.

“Looking at the researches done worldwide , it is seen that %54 of software developers started to write code at age 15. At this point, it is very important for children to get acquainted with technology at an early age. By taking departure from here, we realized the Coding Tomorrow Project with Turkey Vodafone Foundation in 2016. We started to teach coding to children of 7-14  years living Turkey-wide. With our Coding Tomorrow Project, we would like to contribute to raising a generation that produces, not consumes.” Sezai Hazır

“In the social impact report prepared for our project,  we saw that every 1 TL investment made in the Coding Tomorrow Project, had a social return of 4.4 TL. This shows us how much of a multiplier effect the project created as its social impact. We would like to increase the impact of the Coding Tomorrow Project by giving coding trainings to 70 thousand more children in 81 provinces of Turkey next year.” Hasan Süel

“Within the scope of the Coding Tomorrow Project, we gave a start to an important cooperation with Vodafone Turkey Foundation and Habitat Association in 2019. Basic coding trainings were given to our teachers working under the Ministry of National Education. After that, bringing it to a more corporate level in February 2020, we signed a cooperation protocol with Habitat Association and Vodafone Turkey Foundation. These cooperations and the principle of volunteering are the basis of the success of the Coding Tomorrow Project.” Anıl Yılmaz

Gazi University Lecturer, Informatics Garage Academy Founding Partner Selçuk Özdemir and Turkish German University UZEM Director Mona Aykul were the guests of “Technology and Education of New Generation” session moderated by Habitat Association Deputy Secretary General İsmail Metin. In this session, distant education which became an obligation of coronavirus pandemic was spoken about and the condition of education systems in Turkey and in the world both from the perspectives of pedagogy and the educators was mentioned.

“In my opinion, the point of origin for teachers is to make children imagine. We have to inspire them, we no longer have to transfer information to them. There are too many knowledge sources and as an educator I do not think that I am a person who transfers information. I can only be the person who leads children to a source, teaches and/or transfers how to use and practice it in a correct place.” Mona Aykul

“Each second we continue with rote-learning based education systems means that we steal from the future of our new generations. For that reason, there are tremendous responsibilities for educators right now. We need educators who will help children to earn the knowledge and skills, which their new era requires from them, correctly and who are open for improvement.” Selçuk Özdemir

In the session of “New Generation Competencies and Entrepreneurship”, Digital Transformation Programme Director Taha Aydoğmuş’s guest was MEF Vice Rector and YetGen Founder Prof. Dr. Erhan Erkut and he referred to the importance of learning and developing 21. Century competencies.

“We have not realized yet that the curriculum is out of date and information transfer at universities is meaningless and unnecessary.” Erhan Erkut

In this era, in which life styles, social life, work systems, education systems and many things have changed and transformed, volunteering is continuing to change and transform, too. In the “New Generation Volunteering” session moderated by Habitat Association Project Manager Nurdan Ertoğan, what NGOs do on digital platforms and the concept of “digital volunteering” were put emphasis on. The guests of the session were Teachers’ Network General Coordinator Buket Sönmez, Social Me Foundation Founder Ece Çiftçi and Private Sector Volunteers Association Project Coordinator Gizem Ece.

“The first step of volunteering is looking around, focusing on understanding world problems and social problems and taking initiative and action in the field we are interested in.” Buket Sönmez

“Volunteering is a big responsibility and most importantly a team work.” Ece Çiftçi

“There is a big talent, power and belonging in everybody to give inspiration. Nobody should stop sharing it.” Gizem Ece

#VolunteersInConnection activity continued with the session, in which the first Turkish scholar Dr. Canan Dağdeviren who has been chosen as a member of Harvard University Young Academy, participated. Canan Dağdeviren who has been signified as one of the best innovators among 35 people under 35 year olds by Massachusetts Technology Institute (MIT) and among 30 people under 30 year olds by FORBES, mentioned about the studies she did in America and the importance of field coding on which her studies based.

“Me and my team make body compatible, stretchable, electronic machines here. We work on understanding the changes on our bodies by these equipments. We are aware of the importance of coding in each step of our work. Here, by combining the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, coding and medicine, we try to make something come true which did not happen. We took our departure from the ideas of converting biological data of our body to electronic data, transfering them to medical doctors via an interface by coding them and then making doctors use this system and give answers to the following question: “How do we personalise medicine?”. Science does not change according to people and positions. It gives the same result for everyone. I think that if you work, do the best you can and increase your toleration by talking to different people, you can be very successful in life. At the same time, science is pure and eternal. You can have better positions as you work, code, learn and share. Instead of continuing on your way by following opinions of the others, continue on the way of your dreams and never give up.”  Canan Dağdeviren

In the last session which was moderated by Habitat Association Project Manager Gizem Cansever, the guests were UNDP Turkey Communication Coordinator Faik Uyanık, IMECE Director Mustafa Özer and S360 Research and Impact Design Director Seza Eraydın. In the “Global Goals and Social Impact” session, sustainability concept that emerged from the aim of solving environmental problems, SDGs (Sustainable Developing Goals) that were realized with this aim and the studies that institutions made on this subject were spoken about.

“Our planet is facing many problems as climate change. At this point, what NGOs say should be listened to, attention should be paid to the published reports and research, lessons should be learned and it is very important to adapt them to life.” Faik Uyanık

“First of all, we should realize the problem, take an action with the belief that our individual efforts would make a change and be part of the solution.” Mustafa Özer

“No matter in which field we are, we need to question if the thing we do is meaningful for our planet or not.” Seza Eraydın

The first day of the event ended with a clip that our volunteers created with the theme “Sing It From Your Heart”. Our #VolunteersInConnection Volunteer Coordination Meeting, which our 17 precious guests participated in and we broadcasted live from Youtube, was watched by more than 5000 people.

Please click on the linkto watch our #VolunteersInConnection event that we organized within the scope of the Coding Tomorrow Project.

The second day of the Coordination Meeting that the Coding Tomorrow Project Volunteers participated in, was started with Habitat Association Project Manager Nurdan Ertoğan’s new term presentation. Following the new term presentation, the event continued with “I Have A Story!” session which was realized under the moderation of Habitat Association Education Coordinator Melih Onur Tan. In the session, our guests, who are the Coding Tomorrow Project Volunteers, Vodafone Turkey Foundation Foundation Specialist Betül Balcı, Hub21 Trainer and Content Producer Berk Sürücü, Psychological Counselor Büşra Tütüncü, Unicrow Project Manager Nil Oktar and Electrical and Electronic Engineering Student Burakcan Karagöz told their volunteering stories. Following the session, in which new term contents were told as well, the event continued with workshops. In the workshops on the topics of International Relations, Campain Production, Organizations and Communication, ideas were generated on the subject of what can be done in the new term along with volunteer trainers. The event of #VolunteersInConnection ended with the session held on the subjects of Volunteer Management System, KVKK and Creating A Story.