Language is an essential element of communication, whether via humans or computers. And with technology becoming more and more prevalent in today’s world, the need for people to learn and understand coding and programming language has become increasingly more imperative.
Code schools have begun to pop up everywhere, and one local nonprofit organization, CodeCrew, teaches these skills to children from a young age.
CodeCrew teaches children in kindergarten through 12th grade various coding languages and concepts through either in-school electives, after-school programs, or summer programs at participating schools, and at Lester Community Center, CodeCrew’s flagship classroom. Through these programs, children learn coding and programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, and Scratch, as well as useful skills like web and app development, robot coding, and Unity game development.
CodeCrew was founded in in the summer of 2015 by executive director Meka Egwuekwe and co-founders Audrey Willis and Petya Kirilova-Grady. “It started at the Lester Community Center as a summer camp, which we still operate out of with the same three classes that we originally started with,” says Pamela Egwuekwe, Meka’s wife and CodeCrew’s program manager. “It was funded by the Memphis Grizzlies through the Memphis Grizzlies Foundation.”
Once he saw what he could accomplish with students through the summer program, Meka, who had been affiliated with tech business start-up company Start Co. as a mentor, decided he wanted CodeCrew to become a full-fledged company. Once that decision was made, Pamela says, “They were able to go through Start Co. and learn how to be a functioning company, as opposed to just a summer camp.”
From there, the now stand-alone company implemented after-school programs at Lester Community Center and in-school elective classes at participating schools that include Cummings School, Memphis Scholars Raleigh-Egypt Middle School, and Green Dot Charter Network schools.
CodeCrew has continued to work hard to come up with inventive methods for teaching its students. McKenzie Jones and Caleb Cunningham, both advanced-level students in the after-school program at Lester Community Center, find the in-class projects to be engaging and fun.
Jones, a 15-year-old sophomore at Memphis School of Excellence, says her favorite project was attaching an ultrasound device to a basketball hoop to gauge distance and track points. “Mike Conley from the Grizzlies came over and shot some hoops to help us test out our device,” Jones says. She adds, “My favorite thing about coding is the possibility of the many things you can do with code. If you think about it, you can give people a code, and they can make anything.” Jones hopes to code for NASA when she graduates from college.
Cunningham, a 15-year-old sophomore in homeschool, loves building maps and scenery for video games through Unity, a popular game development software program. “My favorite project was a group project at the Saturday class in CodeCrew,” he says. “My friends and I made a game where we would fight with cars, and we would try to knock each other’s cars off the map.” After he graduates from high school, Cunningham hopes to go to a good school and land a job using his acquired coding skills.
Once a week, both kids participate in an after-school class, mentored by members of the St. Jude ALSAC (American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities) Innovation Team, a team dedicated to finding innovative strategies for fundraising and raising awareness for the hospital. Brandon Thornburg, a mentor on the Innovation Team, says, “We want to share the way we create ideas and build prototypes, as well as share technology learnings and real-world activation of the skills the students learn in CodeCrew.”
Pamela Egwuekwe has some big ideas for the company’s future. “I would like to partner with one of Hattiloo Theatre’s summer writing camps and have their students assist our game developer students in writing scripts for video games,” she says. “The video game developers will see that coding is just a small piece of what makes a great game. So that’s my dream — to get kids from every circuit to collaborate on something.”
The ultimate goal for the company, however, is to include computer science classes as a staple in the local school curricula. “We actually want to put ourselves out of business,” Pamela says. “We want to train the teachers to keep doing this stuff, and we want to advocate for great computer science standards in schools. That’s our utopia.”
Every May and December, CodeCrew hosts its Hour of Code event at Cloud901 in the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, where kids from the after-school programs can showcase their acquired skills and prospective students may see what CodeCrew is all about. Additionally, at the end of every summer, CodeCrew hosts its annual Hackathon, where children from the summer programs can create and demonstrate mobile apps to the community.
Anyone interested in becoming involved with the CodeCrew program may visit the official website (code-crew.org) or contact the organization by phone (901-229-1720).