Coding crusaders see tech camps for Hong Kong students taking off as more parents grasp it’s an essential skill for the future
Biggest US coding camp provider iD Tech ran its first Hong Kong programme last summer, and will offer a bigger one this year. ‘Soon, not knowing how to code will be like not knowing how to read,’ iD Tech’s Kris Kasper says
Children’s summer camps in Silicon Valley tend to be a little different from those held in the rest of the US.
In the area around San Francisco Bay, renowned as a hotbed of innovation and home to pioneering technology companies including Google and Apple, parents prefer not to send their children on kayak adventures or arduous mountain treks. Instead, youngsters aged from seven to 17 are more likely to be engaged in computer code writing over their summer holiday, and experts predict these Silicon Valley -style “tech camps” are about to become a huge hit in Hong Kong.
Coding is the language of progress, and Hong Kong needs to master it quickly
“Last year was our first year operating outside the USA, and we decided to start in Hong Kong,” says Kris Kasper, international programme manager of iD Tech, the leading tech camp provider in the US. Its first project in Hong Kong, held at the University of Hong Kong last summer with about 250 children taking part over seven weeks, was more than 95 per cent subscribed. This year it intends to triple the size of the camp and also offer the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) campus as an option for the first time.
“We only work with the top universities so our students can also experience walking in the halls of the campus and, maybe, aspire to study there later in life,” says Kasper. In the US, iD Tech hosts its camps at prestigious campuses such as Princeton, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The company set its sights on Hong Kong because, over the last three years, more than 800 families from Hong Kong and China have sent their children to iD Tech camps in the US.
Coding is what makes it possible for us to create computer software, apps and websites. The courses are week-long modules and Kasper says more parents from East Asia see it as an opportunity to give their children a competitive edge.
