Let's code!
Youth Hacking 4 Freedom, FSFE's coding competition for young Europeans, has just started. The kick-off event took place on the 26th of January with an online meeting for the participants of this year's competition. There they got the most important information about the contest while starting to get to know each other.
Almost 70 young people from all over Europe have signed up for the new edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom. During the contest they not only have the chance to work on their own Free Software projects, but also to win great cash prizes.
The kick-off meeting for this project took place on 26th January with an online event where participants had the chance to get their questions answered about the coding requirements and the coding period, which will end on 30th June. It was a fun event which gave everybody the chance to get to know each other a bit better and to meet other participants from all across Europe. However, the FSFE team was also excited to learn about the participants and to find out what they are looking forward to in the upcoming months.
One of this edition's participants, 1337misom, explains his motivation:
“I have never really released any of my projects because they mainly solved problems for myself and weren't optimized for ease of use etc. So this will be my first shot at actually creating a program that lasts for more than a few weeks".
The opportunity to work on a project they are really interested in, as well as gaining experience and having fun, is the main reason given by the participants. Jannes, who has already taken part in the first edition of the contest last year, said that he joined "to have fun, meet exciting people with even more exciting ideas and develop a (hopefully) useful program in a limited time".
Over the coming months, participants will have the opportunity to discuss their projects once a month in an online meeting as well as through the dedicated Youth Hacking 4 Freedom Matrix room, where FSFE's team is also available to answer questions. These channels allow teenagers to share their ideas and questions, receive feedback from their peers, and see what other participants are working on.
The road to the awards ceremony in Brussels has already begun, and although most of the participants are not yet thinking about this event, they are excited about the opportunity to present a good and practical project and to have their code judged by a panel of experts. And although winning is not their main motivation, of course, “nobody is bitter for a sweet". Good luck!
Footnotes
- We are using the names that the participants are using in the internal contest Matrix chat.