Digital Literacy For Kids | Learn Coding With Saturday Kids

Why We Started A School For Digital Literacy 4 Years Ago

Four years ago when Saturday Kids started we had a blog for a while, but we got busy running classes and neglected the blog. Inevitably we stopped updating the blog and lost it forever after one of our site updates. Did we think what started as a coding school for kids (when there were none in Singapore back then) will survive four years? Probably not. But here we are today – four years on – a little older, a little wiser, and still as passionate about digital literacy for kids.

Over the last four years, we have taught close to 2,000 kids programming, 3D printing, electronics, and design thinking. The number of kids we have impacted is for us the most important number. Not revenue, not profits, not vanity metrics like number of Facebook Page likes or number of Twitter followers. Of course revenue and profits are important – without profits a business cannot survive – but we like to measure ourselves based on the number of kids who have been exposed to programming and other forms of digital creation because of Saturday Kids. That is why we run classes as small as 3 students, because if a child wants to learn with us we hate to say no.

We have been fortunate enough to work with giant tech companies like Google and Cognizant, international and government agencies like UN Women and IDA, as well as local and international schools like St. Gabriels’ Primary School and Canadian International School. We hope to keep growing this list of corporate, institutional and education partners in order to impact more kids and get them exposed to digital creation from a young age.

Impacting 200,000 Kids Over The Next 4 Years

On the product side, we have gone far beyond visual programming using Scratch and now offer courses and workshops for Python, HTML/CSS, littleBits, MakeyMakey, graphic design and design thinking. MIT App Inventor, Javascript and Ruby on Rails are in the works. We want to push the boundaries of what kids can do and give those who are clearly interested in programming and design pathways to explore and learn. From a one man show when we started, we are now a core team of five assisted by a group of freelance instructors consisting of stay-home mums, computer science students and software engineers, all of whom are passionate about digital literacy for kids. We also have a small group of CTO-level friends we turn to for advice on curriculum and course development.

Four years may not sound like a long time, but for a startup it’s eternity. We have come this far with the support of parents, schools and partners, and we hope we will at least survive the next four years and keep making a dent on digital literacy for kids. 2,000 kids over the first four years is a modest achievement. We want to impact 200,000 kids over the next four.

40 kids attended a free full day coding workshop we ran in collaboration with Google and 21C Girls in Feb 2016.