In a three-day coding challenge that took place across all five polytechnics in Singapore, participants unlocked S$80,000 that will go towards helping less-privileged students within the respective institutions.

A new initiative by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), Code for Charity aims to reach out to people of all ages and from all walks of life to highlight the importance of coding. It provides an opportunity for participants, with or without programming knowledge, to take part in coding challenges.

At the same time, the participants are able to do their part for charity. With each completed challenge, funds will be drawn down and channelled towards a good cause – in this case the polytechnics’ needy student fund. The amount ranges from S$20 to S$100, depending on the difficulty of the challenge.

“Through Code for Charity, IDA hopes to ignite the interest of more young people in building innovative solutions to address real world problems,” said Mr Khoong Hock Yun, Assistant Chief Executive (Infrastructure and Services Development), IDA.

He noted that technology is becoming increasingly pervasive and delivers benefits to individuals, societies and businesses. With this, coding skills are becoming an essential competency for the next-generation of technology professionals.

Agreeing, Ms Angela Wee, Director of Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of InfoComm Technology, said, “We are talking about analysis and problem solving skills before getting down to code.  These skills are highly relevant and important fundamentals that make the tech students highly versatile in whatever they do in life.”

Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Code for Charity challenges included programming a robot and creating a memory game. The aim was to create challenges that were appealing and relevant to daily situations, so that prospective students could become more aware of how IT can enable innovations in the real world, said Ms Wee.

Among the students who tried their hand at the challenges was Jamie Chow from St Joseph’s Convent. “The coding was quite fun. It’s not every day you get to control a robot and make it bow and dance,” she said.

Also trying his hand at the challenges was Lee Zhong Han, from the School of IT at the Institute of Technical Education. He said that programming and networking were some areas that he was interested in.

The inaugural Code for Charity also involved Singapore Polytechnic, Nanyang Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic and Republic Polytechnic, and took place at the polytechnics’ open houses which ran from 9 to 11 January 2014.

SAP, the exclusive partner for this year’s event, pledged close to S$80,000 to be drawn down and donated through the challenges. “Through our contribution to Code for Charity, we want to help students in Singapore discover their potential to create social innovation through technology,” said Ms Kelly Tan, Managing Director, SAP Singapore.

In all, about 10,000 prospective students, parents and teachers were exposed to coding over the three days. “We are excited that more young people are exposed to coding and learning to code,” said Mr Khoong. “Partnering the polytechnics this year is the first step; IDA will be looking to expand the scope of the challenge, bringing together the aspirations of our young to code for change, and to give back to society.”