Over 100 children participated at a special individual hackathon covering three segments Cadet (Grades 1-4), Captain (Grades 5-8) and Colonel (Grades 9-13)
iCodejr, the STEM accredited, licensed online coding academy for school children, hosted its third hackathon at the recent Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival (SEF) in partnership with Sheraa. With up to AED 3000 in cash and gifts up for grabs, CodeNova is an in-person open coding competition where students compete in three groups (grades 1-4, 5-8 & 9-13) with a choice of themes, and a two-hour coding window to complete their projects.
Hannan Moti, the co-founder at iCodejr, said, “We are pleased to have the support of organisations like Sheraa that want to create skills for future entrepreneurs starting at the grassroots – at schools. Coding sessions and hackathons do not just build cognitive creative skills but also teach students to collaborate, & showcase their coding proficiency.
Gopika Shenoy won the Cadet (Grades 1-4) category with Kanishka Manikandan and Kashika Sonone coming second and third, respectively. In the Captain (Grades 5-8) category, Waleed Afridi won the top prize with second and third prizes going to Omar Nabeel and Nithilan Kumar. In the final category, Colonel (Grades 9-13), tested their skills using text-based platforms such as HTML CSS JavaScript, C, C++, CSS, Java etc, or block-based platforms like Scratch, Thunkable, code.org, etc, Mohamed Jefran was the winner with Aarush Taneja and Maksym Melnyk in second and third places.
At a special prize-giving session at the end of SEF, Gopika Shendy won the audience’s hearts as the huge sign announcing her achievement was bigger than her.
SEF hosted its 6th edition, created and organised by Sheraa, and attracted over 5,000 visitors, future business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs.
iCodejr has hosted student hackathons in Dubai and Sharjah and are planning to host one in Abu Dhabi and other Emirates. For details on iCodejr and its courses and eligibility, interested students and parents may visit the website at www.icodejr.com, call +971 50 MY ICODE (69 42633), or drop the team an email on contact@icodejr.com.
