European Citizen's Prize for CoderDojo

Seán Kelly MEP (Ireland South) has congratulated Irish foundation, CoderDojo, on receiving the prestigious European Citizen’s Prize at the official European Parliament prize-giving ceremony in Brussels this week.  

The global network of voluntary coding clubs for youth was nominated by MEP Kelly for inspiring thousands of children to expand their knowledge through technology and entrepreneurship by joining the non-profit clubs.

"In 2013, I hosted the first ever EU Dojo event in the European Parliament.  At the time, CoderDojo was little over one year old and was active in 10 member states. Now, there are over 1,010 clubs in 65 countries, 750 of those clubs are Europe-based. That's remarkable growth," Mr Kelly said in praising the CoderDojo initiative, which was co-founded in by James Whelton and Bill Liao in Cork.

The award comes ahead of the annual EU Dojo coding workshop in the European Parliament next week (18 October) - a highly successful collaboration, co-hosted by Mr Kelly and CoderDojo, as part of EU Code Week 15-23 October.

MEP Kelly is pictured with Giustina Mizzoni, Executive Director of CoderDojo.