100 young coders conclude programming competition

AMMAN — A national programming competition organised by local organisation Hello World Kids (HWK) last week gave young innovators the chance to demonstrate their newly acquired programming skills.

Held for the second year in a row, the National Programming Competition saw the participation of more than 100 students from public and private schools across the Kingdom.

Twelve-year-old Yara Al Shamayla, was one of the winners rewarded at the final ceremony held at the King Hussein Business Centre in the presence of Education Ministry Secretary General Mohammad Akour.

"It's important to learn programming at a young age because the economy, the world and jobs will depend on this language in the future," the sixth-grader said, stressing that programming opens up "great opportunities" for young people and teaches them a lot of skills such as logical thinking and English.

She voiced her pride in being able to "create applications that benefit people and facilitate their daily lives".

Alongside Yara on the bench of winning programmers was Hamza Alaloul, who expressed his hope and ambition to become a "future entrepreneur" who invents and creates programmes and ideas that benefit people.

The two youngsters were among the 16 people who won prizes at the final ceremony, which was held under the patronage of Minister of Education Omar Razzaz. 

"Such an event is an opportunity to discover young talents in the field of programming, and the ministry strongly supports such initiatives that stimulate our students to excel in the IT sector in the future," said Akour.

The 16 prizes were awarded in two categories: ten for "Pioneers of the Future" (the first level of programming), and six for "Creators of the Future", the second level of programming offered by HWK. 

"For each student who wins, the teacher is also rewarded," said Lama Al Himssi, head of marketing at HWK.

Started three years ago by Jordanian Hanan Khader, HWK teaches coding and programming to kids between the ages of 6 and 15. "Teaching coding is not only about creating a new generation of programmers but rather about instilling skill-ability at a very young age. When a kid learns how to code, he/she also learns crucial skills such as problem solving, critical thinking or data analysis, among others," Khader told The Jordan Times, stressing "these tech skills will be useful for a lifetime."

She said that the competition and the National Young Programmer programme are some of the most important initiatives to be proud of in Jordan. "This year, we have taught more than 30,000 children from public and private schools at the first level of the HWK Programming Platform. Today, we celebrate and acknowledge them, to cultivate the spirit of competition and love of learning anything new in the world of programming and technology," Khader said.

This year, the programme was supported by the Crown Prince Foundation, and partnered with the Queen Rania Academy for Teacher Training in addition to the Ministry of Education, Al Himssi said.

"We have managed to reach more than 100 schools and train over 225 teachers, both in public and private schools," said Khader, noting that ten private schools this year taught the organisation's programming platform at multiple levels, resulting in "the discovery of many talented people who believe that they will contribute in building the best future".

The founder praised the efforts of the numerous companies and institutions from the private and public sectors, which she said "have converged to achieve the noble goal of giving the opportunity to learn programming to different groups of children from various environments".

Executive Director of the Crown Prince's Foundation Tamam Mango, expressed her happiness at the graduation of the winners, saying "our support to this programme comes from our keenness to support and prepare this important age group in paving the way for becoming conscious youth able to improve themselves and society in the future."

"From the first day of our partnership with the Ministry of Education, we have noticed the need to support this unique programming coalition, which includes government institutions, civil society institutions and a leading Jordanian institution," Mango noted.

The competition also honoured the trainers who supported the students in the programming challenge, such as Masters student in computer science Inas Khuwaila, who said "training these young children was an enjoyable and useful experience which I hope encouraged them to continue the training course in the future."

"Young people programming is very important in preparing them for the future and participate in the development of the sector and the knowledge economy," she pointed out.

Several universities across the Kingdom participated in the training of the young programmers including Al Zarqa Al Ahlia, Al Zaytouna University, Balqa Applied University, University of Jordan's Aqaba Branch and the University of Science and Technology in Irbid.