4 million participants in the 2021 EU Code Week

An infographic design showing some of the numbers described in the article about Code Week: 4 million participants, 49% were girls, of average age of 11 years and 34,500 organisers

The official numbers for the 2021’s edition of EU Code Week are out and they reflect the successful results of the campaign, which started as a grass-roots initiative 9 years ago with the support of the European Commission. The 2021 edition of EU Code Week records a massive participation of 4 million people all over the world and more than 78.000 activities organised.

Created to bring coding and digital literacy to everyone in a fun and engaging way, EU Code Week gives tools to teachers and coding enthusiasts to organise activities so they can teach coding to their students. Good news: last year’s situation and the need to organise these activities either in a hybrid or entirely virtual way due to COVID-19 has not impacted its popularity (11% of the activities were held online and 83% in person,while for 6% the location was not specified).

This European initiative has become incredibly popular also outside of the EU space: the ten most active countries in organising activities were Turkey (27.000 activities), Italy (18.000) and Poland (15.000), Greece (2.300 activities), Austria and Romania (both 1.800), Hungary (1.400), Croatia, Spain and Germany (all 1.000). However, when it came to organising the most activities in relation to the size of the population Monaco, Malta and Estonia topped the scoreboard.

The average age of participants was 11 years and, as in previous years, nearly half of the participants (49%) were girls. 34.000 people – mostly teachers – organised more than 78.000 activities, a 15% increase compared to 2020. 88% of the activities took place in schools, showing the teachers great involvement in the initiative.

New initiatives in 2021

Due to the increasing success of Code Week, a number of new activities were organised in 2021, such as the 18 Coding Challenges developed by the community and partners and the EU Code Week podcast series, where Arjana Blazic and Eugenia Casariego from the Code Week Team talk to guests on topics such as how robotics can enhance education, the role of coding in music, uses of game design and gamification etc (new episodes are published every Tuesday).

In 2021,Arab Code Week was also launched by the Arab Organisation for Education, Culture and Science (ALECSO), in cooperation with the Tunisian Association for Educational Initiatives. EU and Arab Code Week share the same goal of making it easier to learn and understand programming in a fun and entertaining way.

Code Week Hackathons in 6 countries

Teams with over 300 upper secondary schools’ pupils from Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Romania and Slovenia competed in the EU Code Week hackathons in 2021. They met mentors, participated in workshops and developed solutions to challenges such as fighting food waste, helping young people find jobs, connecting NGOs and local food producers etc. The winning team from each country took part in the EU Code Week hackathon final where their projects were judged by an international jury. The winners were Team Strassuim from Slovenia.

The teachers of Code Week 2021

Thousands of teachers participated in the two Code Week MOOCs organised in 2021. The AI basics for schools focused on how to integrate AI resources into teaching practices. In the Code Week Bootcamp MOOC, teachers of all subjects from pre-primary to secondary discovered different resources, concrete lesson plans and tools on how to inspire students to learn to code.  In the last four years, 20.000 teachers have participated in EU Code Week MOOCs and other training courses.

Activity organisers took also active part in the CodeWeek4All where the challenge was to build alliances with at least 9 other activity organisers and/or with organisers in 2 other countries. In total, 3.600 alliances formed and 800 fulfilled the criteria and will receive a certificate of excellence. 170 alliances met both conditions. 1.343 persons organised more than 10 activities on their own and will rewarded the Super Organiser Certificate

EU Code Week's 10^th birthday

The initiative is turning 10 years old in 2022, so do not miss it! The event will take place from 8 to 23 October 2022, but due to the anniversary, special activities will be organised all year around starting with the Cake challenge. Here the participants are challenged to practice computational thinking by baking a birthday cake for Code Week. 

Ready to code?