Code Club Australia, part of the Telstra Foundation, invests in the changemakers of tomorrow with free resources and training to help #getkidscoding.
Code Club Australia relies on their volunteer base to mentor and support young people—engaging over 165,000 kids nationwide—through pioneering digital inclusion.
Today were engaged to design and build a digital platform that could maintain and grow the coding community by delivering an informative and dynamic user experience, and reducing administration overheads from outdated back-end systems.
We began our journey by defining two key objectives to guide our efforts to improve the experience of Code Club's lifeblood, the volunteers.
Volunteer retention: Besides hosting many of the 2,300 existing clubs, volunteers function as ambassadors; helping engage more people through word of mouth in their communities. We planned to nurture the volunteers by building a real sense of pride in the difference they make directly, but also as part of something much bigger.
Club growth: Our efforts on this project support growth, by providing better guidance and support for particular types of users. The digital tools we designed allow for more personalised and relevant communication, at scale.
Enable future skills
Digital is speeding along and it’s now an imperative that kids have these skills so that they’re worth a lot more and can stay relevant in a rapidly evolving society.
“I want them know they can be more than a telemarketer”
“It should be normalised not exclusive”
Provide fun and engagement
The kids are there by choice. They are really interested as an alternative form of entertainment that gets them learning.
“I do it so that kids have that opportunity to explore tangents and find their passion”
Personal reward
Parents are able to learn valuable skills and building connections with kids.
“The look that you get on a kids face when they figure something out and they see it work”
Out of all the international Code Clubs, this Australian platform caters for their audience needs and delivers a real future-proofed platform that can grow easily and beautifully over time.
It was such a rewarding project to work on—knowing we are helping to make digital more accessible to communities across the country—and serving the legends who deliver it; volunteers, who offer their time and skills to #getkidscoding.
Alex Bennett
Senior Producer at Today
The growing digital divide in Australia threatens meaningful online participation and further entrenches existing disadvantages.
Code Club stands for a future in which the digital world is accessible for everybody, no matter who they are or where they live.
They use digital making as a way to introduce kids to the power and possibilities of computing, so the next generation can take advantage of digital opportunities even though their community may not have.
Communities with a high level of digital exclusion will be a particular focus for Code Club, with three specific impact objectives related to these groups:
We delivered a future-proofed platform that can grow easily and beautifully over time. The new Code Club Australia website delivers a more accessible digital world to communities across the country and better serves the volunteers who make it all possible.
Our solution provides the right building blocks to prepare, run and maintain the best club experiences possible. Delivered with exceptional interaction design that speaks to the young people we want to inspire.