Coded by Kids, a free technology education program, reaches nearly 100 students a week in schools and rec centers across the city of Philadelphia. Currently in its third year, CBK has scaled up quickly to bring a robust coding curriculum to kids ages 5-18.
The successful program has seen participants go on to work as junior developers at local software companies, create apps they hope to bring to market, and most importantly, shown hundreds of kids there is a place for them in the innovation economy.
We are ready to do more. We have a waiting list of 12 schools community groups that are excited to partner with us.
With your help we can raise the funds to support 12 after school coding programs across Philadelphia, allowing us to to reach 300 students every week.
Every $355 we raise pays for 12 weeks of instruction for 1 child.
Who we are
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We are committed to providing free tech education, tech industry exposure and career mentorship to children who lack access to these opportunities.
Click the logos below to learn more about our work to date!
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What We Teach
Our dynamic, project-based curriculum teaches students skills used by adult software engineers and web developers every day on the job. The longer a student stays in one of our programs, the more skills they acquire, including:
- Beginning to advanced web application development
- Beginning to advanced user interface and user experience design
- Fundamentals of IT project management
- Fundamentals of software engineering
- Fundamentals of tech focused entrepreneurship
Students as young as 5 years old have created websites about their favorite movies and cartoon characters, know how to code in multiple languages, and use Git/Github for version control and project tracking.
Our vision and plan
Coded by Kids envisions a world where technology education is as accessible as youth sports.
Founded in 2013 when CEO, Sylvester Mobley, volunteered at his neighborhood rec center teaching coding to just one student, the program has grown on a shoestring budget with the help of a dedicated group of volunteers and program partners.
We are strong believers in partnership and its power to help a program like ours quickly and effectively get its services to kids in their own communities. The funds we raise from this campaign will be used to bring free, high quality after school coding programs directly to the students our partners serve.
Help us identify additional partners! Learn how in the Other Ways You Can Help section below.
Campaign FAQ
1. Why are we crowdfunding?
Coded by Kids is in demand. We've been able to achieve a lot with a little, but we believe crowdfunding is the best way to raise the money we need funds needed to make an impact now. We’re not looking for easy money — we want to make sure Philadelphia students can keep up, and ultimately, lead the way
2. What is our program budget?
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3. How do we intend to scale in the next few years?
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4. What happens if we don't raise the full amount of funding?
Our programs will be run in the order that partners signed on to participate in our campaign. If we only raise enough to fund 4 programs, then the first 4 partners to sign onto the campaign will host programs this year. All of our partners are willing to take this chance in order to get their students access to technology education.
5. Can you direct your contribution to a specific campaign partner?
Unfortunately, Indiegogo contributions cannot be earmarked for a specific campaign partner. Instead, we encourage you to help us spread the word about the campaign in order to ensure we achieve our funding goal and all of our partners benefit from our programs!
Have a question we haven't answered here? Email us and we'll get back to you within 3 business days.
