Like many parents and educators, he anticipates that computer skills will be crucial for success, especially as indicators point to computer science as a key area of job growth. “Computer literacy, and in particular computer programming, is a key life skill today and is as important as reading or math, but it isn’t introduced to kids early enough or with enough rigor in schools,” he says. Yadin Rozov has enrolled his three children - 10, 8, and 6 - in private, at-home CodeAdvantage classes. “It’s an alternative to the usual after-school activities, like sports, and teaches kids critical thinking and creative reasoning, and gives them confidence with technology.” “Parents want these classes desperately,” says Chaturvedi. The reception from both schools and parents has been positive.
Girl Code Power classes can be created based on demand and have only female students as well as women instructors to foster an empowering environment. The company offers a selection of courses including Kodu – which allows students to program their own 3D video games – to robotics and Python, among others. Courses run for an average of 11 weeks and typically meet for one hour per week. At any given time the company can have as many as 90 classes running week. “Most teachers in elementary schools don’t have the qualifications to teach coding, so we’re able to supplement and give schools the ability to offer STEM programs for all grade levels.”ĬodeAdvantage offers courses in New York and New Jersey, as well as recently added programs in Washington, D.C. “After school programs are the easiest way to bring this type of technical curriculum into schools,” says Chaturvedi. The two launched CodeAdvantage to fill these voids, partnering with both private and public schools to offer coding classes in after-school enrichment programs. “I’m an engineer, I’m very involved in STEM, and I was becoming infuriated that this entire movement was happening without girls and women participating,” says Chaturvedi. “I realized a lot of Americans were not studying computer science.” The duo was also concerned by the absence of girls in the computer science field. “When I started doing research, I was shocked at the dearth of qualified job candidates out there to fill coding jobs,” says Chaturvedi. She had been working for six years at marketing technology company Affinnova, and had year-old twins and a three year old still, she was ready to jump on board the new venture. May immediately thought of Chaturvedi as the perfect partner to build on his idea. Classes existed, but either taught coding at levels too advanced for young children, or simply had kids playing computer games. May hit on the idea for CodeAdvantage about five years ago, during a conversation with his sister, then a computer programmer she pointed out that high-quality computer coding education was lacking in New York City. To address that new demand, Charu Chaturvedi ’01 and Paul May ’01 - who met at the Business School in 1999 as cluster mates - founded CodeAdvantage, a company that teaches coding to children in pre-K through eighth grade through after-school programs, camps, and private lessons. But there is a new subject that parents and educators are starting to consider just as important - coding. Reading, art, math, science - these are the familiar pillars of a child’s early education.