The kids have just left and we’re getting used to the strangely unfamiliar quietness. To say that Young Rewired State is a unique event is to underestimate the challenge of helping a group of teenagers through a week of idea development and app creation.
At the end of day 1, we have two teams of four teenagers (all aged between 15 and 17), and two great ideas. I won’t give away too many of the details in case the nasty competition is reading, but one half of the group is thinking about a game that pits London Boroughs against each other, and the other wants to illuminate the political system to 16 year-old’s. Just small ambitions then.
We’ve had plenty of mentors drop in at the beginning and end of the day and their feedback on the 16:30 show ‘n’ tell seemed to go down well. The mentors certainly seemed impressed by the outcome of a day of thinking, and noticed a huge change in atmosphere from the reasonably timid beginnings at 10am this morning, to the excitable, noisy afternoon.
Big thanks to Jonathan Hogg and Patrick Sinclair, who have been our two lead mentors today. Looking forward to tomorrow now!
Today, we said hi to the 10 tech teens who are coming to Shoreditch Works for this year’s Young Rewired State, running from August 6th. We have the pleasure of being Shoreditch’s only YRS centre, so we’re hoping to draft in mentors and helpers from the area.
The YRS week involves hacking together a mobile or web app using open data, which the teams take to the weekend’s Festival of Code in Birmingham, to compete against teams from 50 other centres around the UK. It’s going to be massive.
If you’re local and interested in mentoring, or getting involved at all, please sign up on the YRS website: http://youngrewiredstate.org/mentors/ - let them know you are local to Shoreditch Works so they don’t allocate you somewhere miles away.
Drop us a line at contact [at] shoreditchworks [dot] com if you want to find out more.
Last Tuesday we had a few people round for some drinks and amazing nibbles (provided by Rosy Rong) to celebrate our “official” opening.
The party was also a celebration for a few other launches, in its guise as our first-ever “Launch Bar”. Contentment, a company in the building, were launching the open beta of their publishing product, Padify. We also had GlassEye launching Juxtapo.se, and the walls were newly covered with a fabulous, Shoreditch-based, photography exhibition by Margot Chollet. Here’s Margot in front of one her favourites:
Looking forward to next month…
"Despite 97% of teenagers and young adults saying they like or even love technology, only 18% of them have indicated a definite interest in an IT career"
— silicon republic
(Source: http)
"Our involvement in TeenTech was the indirect result a conversation with fellow Hackney resident (and Shoreditch Works co-habitee) James Governor"
—
http://www.glasseyeinc.com/2012/06/14/you-know-for-kids/
