school’s out & e-skills are in!

School’s out and summer’s here! With a long stretch of vacation ahead, parents are always looking for creative ways to “edutain” their children (and prevent weeks of daytime Netflixathons, social media surfing and YouTube browsing).

While summer camps dedicated to sports, language-learning or the arts are still popular, a new option has emerged: e-skills learning that lets young people channel their digital energies.

The Grand Duchy is committed to promoting digital literacy and teaching its younger population the value and potential of technology, now and for when they embark on their professional careers.

Children are the future. By supporting and enabling youth programs, Luxembourg wants to help them get ahead of the tech game and have fun while doing it.

So, what’s in store for the country’s budding techies this summer? With an abundance of collaborative, informative and engaging courses on the agenda, they will experience the world of tech…hands-on.

This week kicked off with CodeKlass in Walferdange (July 9–20), a free coding training course enabled by Digital Luxembourg. It’s the fast track to digital literacy. In just 10 days, up to 25 students will not only have learned the basics of HTML, CSS & Javascript, but also launched a personal website and developed a multiplayer game. All spots have already been filled for this summer’s course, but another one is on the cards very soon.

Other opportunities to discover the world of coding can be found at Workshop4Me, which is running summer camps in July and August, and Code Club, which teaches the basics of coding to children as young as seven.

Aspiring scientists aged 16 and up should check out the first Scienteens Academy at the University of Luxembourg. From September 6–14, the Scienteens Lab is running a unique, multidisciplinary workshop combining biology, math and computer science. Students start off with microscopes and petri dishes in the lab, before finishing up at a laptop learning to analyze the data and run computer-based simulations.

Digital inclusion is a priority for Luxembourg, and Women in Digital Empowerment (WIDE), is pushing the boundaries to encourage women and girls to unleash their talent in the tech arena. From July 16–20, female students between 13 and 25 will have the chance to get innovative and tech-savvy at WIDE’s web development summer school at the Forum Geesseknäppchen.

The government’s support for e-skills learning doesn’t end there: from this coming fall, the Luxembourg Tech School (LTS) will offer courses focused on specific tech domains to students aged 15 to 19. From game development and big data to space resources and AI for fintech, their eyes will be opened to the endless possibilities of tech and how it can shape their future careers. Just another good reason for young people to step up their e-skills this summer.

School may be out, but the learning has just begun.

live the movement