Imperial CodeLab inspires White City pupils to become future innovators

Imperial CodeLab introduces local young people to interactive and hands-on coding projects to inspire the next generation of innovators in White City.

Hosted at The Invention Rooms at Imperial’s White City Campus, Imperial CodeLab is an after school club targeted at young people living in White City, with places prioritised for young people who are the first in their family to attend University.

By widening participation from under-represented groups, CodeLab seeks to improve opportunities for local children and build a more diverse technology sector for the future.

Over the course of the programme, CodeLab uses interactive and creative coding projects to give young people the opportunity to develop practical skills in problem-solving, creativity and computational thinking.

With guidance from Imperial students, the participants get to code their very own projects, leaving them with the skills and confidence they will need for a future increasingly driven by technology.

Tieyan Eweka, whose son Micah is enrolled on the programme, said: "Micah has autism and he has now found something he can really focus on, he's always been interested in computers but CodeLab is on another level completely!"

Aleksandrs Golcovs, whose 10 year old daughter Liza attended the CodeLab, said:  "Imperial CodeLab has helped our daughter see that coding isn't scary and that it can be fun and exciting. Liza has been to every session and has loved learning how to code, especially the interactive games."

Creative Coding

The learning platform used on the course was developed by Imperial students from the Department of Computing as a project for their MSc. Since graduating, they have founded digital education start-up TuringLab, who remain crucial to the delivery of CodeLab at Imperial.

Sam Green, Imperial alumnus and co-founder of Turinglab, said: "We started Turinglab to ensure children's first steps into coding are fun, creative and stimulating. Through the Imperial CodeLab programme at White City we want to inspire more young children from underrepresented groups to develop their digital literacy and become future innovators".

CodeLab's expansion to White City follows a successful launch at Imperial's South Kensington Campus. Having been founded successfully last year by Imperial's Department of Computing, the CodeLab at South Kensington continues to run during school term time on regular Saturday mornings.

Imperial CodeLab has been made possible by generous support from the YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP.

If you would like to find out more about our White City community outreach activities, please email the White City Community Engagement Team on whitecity.community@imperial.ac.uk