Only one in ten young people can program

A representative survey of 10- to 18-year-olds conducted by the digital association Bitkom concluded that the programming skills of young people do not currently meet the future needs of the German economy.

"Smartphones and tablets are a natural part of everyday life for many children and young people. But only very few know how the devices actually work".

says Bitkom Managing Director Christian Kulick.

To promote interest in digital technologies, the Bitkom education initiative erlebe IT and the intercultural association Mar de Colores organized an open coding workshop as part of the international Code Week.

In the current year, erlebte IT has already held 100 project days at schools throughout Germany. In addition to introducing students to programming, the workshops and training sessions, which are aimed at students, teachers and parents, also focus on teaching media skills, such as recognizing fake news, protecting privacy in social networks or creating creative video projects.

The initiative has been working to teach digital skills in German schools since 2009. Across Germany, 850 schools cooperate with erlebe IT. The initiative is made possible financially by sponsors such as Deutsche Telekom, Arvato Systems, Cisco and SAP.