Finalists answer Google’s Call to Code

Life

Pictured: Google Call to Code Junior cycle winner Picture Caolan Fleming, from St Mary's CBS, Portlaoise with senior cycle winner Nebojsa Cvetkovic, from The High School, Rathgar, Dublin

The winners of Gppgle’s Call to Code competition for post primary schools were chosen at an event at the search giant’s office in Dublin yesterday.

The overall winner of the junior cycle group was Caolan Fleming (14) from St. Marys CBS Portlaoise and the winner of the senior cycle group was Nebojsa Cvetkovic (18) from The High School, Rathgar. They both received a brand new Chromebook.

The final round of the competition brought 40 of Ireland’s brightest and best young computer scientists – 20 junior and 20 senior cycle students – pitted against each other to answer coding challenges and solve logic puzzles.

Prizes were also awarded to two teachers for their role in promoting computer science among their students – Kate Leahy from Ardscoil na Trionoide, Athy, Co. Kildare had the most competing students in the Senior and Maeve Cormican from Carrick-on-Shannon Community School, Co. Leitrim had the highest number of competing students in the Junior category. Each received a Chromebook as well as a Chromebook computer lab for their school.

“We welcome the Government’s objective to embed ICT skills as part of initial and ongoing professional development for teachers, along with developing opportunities for students to take an in-depth ICT course at Leaving Cert,” said Niall Murphy, Google Engineering. “It is predicted that there will be as many as 900,000 job vacancies across the European Union by 2020 due to a lack of digital skills. So we need to develop these basic skills for every student as much as we need to inspire the next generation of computer scientists and technology leaders who will help drive a new wave of innovation in Ireland.”

More than 1,500 students were registered by more than 400 teachers to represent their school with a healthy 46:54 female to male ratio. Almost three-quarters (70%) of participation came from outside of Dublin showing a growing interest among students in computer science and coding across Ireland.

All 40 finalists received a certificate of commendation and the second and third place finalists also received Google Play store credit.

TechCentral Reporters

Read More: Awards Call to Code Education Google