FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Community comes together to raise awareness about the importance of computer science education by participating in the global Hour of Code initiative.

Vancouver, BC - November 16, 2015.

400 students from across BC will participate in Codecreate, the largest province-wide youth coding initiative in celebration of Hour of Code. Hour of Code is a grassroots digital literacy campaign aimed at sparking an interest in computer science in youth around the world.

Lighthouse Labs, Canada’s premier coding bootcamp, is hosting the first Codecreate event in their downtown Vancouver campus on Saturday, December 5th. The event provides an opportunity for local students to gain exposure to computer programming and to inspire them to consider a career in technology.

“Lighthouse Labs is proud to take part in Codecreate as both Learning Partner across the province and Host Partner for the Vancouver event.” Says Jeremy Shaki, Co-Founder and Chief Talking Officer at Lighthouse Labs. “Code is a fundamental part of everything we use in our personal and professional lives and we should all understand how it works. It is imperative that we show Canada’s next generation that code is a vessel for whatever passions you may have.”

Students aged 8 to 18 from the Vancouver School Board and surrounding school districts, including local aboriginal students from the First Nations Technology Council’s school network, and teachers from the BC Teachers’ Federation’s CUEBC (Computer Using Educators of BC) will participate free-of-charge in this event held at Lighthouse Labs’ unique open-concept classroom. Over two dozen software developers from local technology companies will mentor students during the workshop. The students and teachers of Vancouver and BC will join 100 million people worldwide who have already tried an Hour of Code.

The Codecreate events held across BC in Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna are supported by the Government of B.C., the Computer Using Educators of BC (CUEBC), which is a Provincial Specialist Association of the British Columbia Teachers’ Association (BCTF), Lighthouse Labs and host partners in each region.

For more information about Codecreate, visit Codecreate.ca.

For more information about Hour of Code, visit hourofcode.com/ca.

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