MARKODING: Let's learn coding!

Markoding is an integrated online/offline community platform that introduces underprivileged youth how to code in a fun and simple way for free, using their available resources (smartphones and internet shops). By teaching them the fundamentals of programming, we can build a generation with relevant skills that meets future market’s demand.

As digital technologies have grown rapidly all over the world, workers with Information and Technology (IT) skills will be in high demand for future job market. Coding, or programming, will become the most important job skill of the future.

Meanwhile, most of formal education systems in developing countries don’t equip their students with IT training. World Bank Development Report 2016 estimates 35% of working age individuals in Southeast Asia face a constraint to employment due to lack of IT skills. With Markoding, we are preparing underprivileged youth for the future job market by teaching them how to code.

Our target participants are underprivileged youth in urban areas. Currently, we are planning to pilot our program in 10 communities in Jakarta. These youth will learn basic programming using e-learning through their smartphones and internet shops. We randomize half of the communities to receive weekly training from mentors to test which mentoring procedure will work best for scale-up purposes. We hope to equip youth with basic coding skills and self-study habit to continue their learning process independently. We also want to build an online community for these early-stage coders to seek help and support from their peers and mentors.

badges earned and completion of the program - Development of participant's basic coding skills

psychological aptitude test pre- and post- 8-weeks training program - Development of participants' transferable skills

response activities ( number of questions & answered questions) in the online community forum - Development of community support system network

• Markoding gives incentive to disadvantaged youth to learn how to code actively using its gamification feature. This feature rewards students who completed weekly e-learning modules with badges that can be posted in social medias and redeemed as cellphone credits.

• We make the learning process fun, simple, and engaging, by tailoring the curriculum content to be localized and easily understood.

• Our solution is affordable and accessible for the users, since we use their available resources they already have (smartphones and internet shops).

• We provide network for help and support through our mentors and online community.

To inspire our target participants, we introduce Markoding by inviting successful programmers who came from socio-economic background similar to theirs. From our pilot, we will incorporate direct feedback from disadvantaged youth to construct our curriculum. After the completion of the program, we will use stories from graduates’ learning experience to motivate new students to join Markoding. We will also give the opportunity for Markoding's alumni to assist the mentors. To sustain their learning process, we will provide an online community forum that will be run and maintained by the students and alumni.

Accessibility: 
Youth from disadvantaged communities can access the learning materials from the website/ app using their own smartphones or through internet shops. Interesting fact: Despite their poverty level, youth in marginalized areas in Indonesia’s big cities are tech savvy. They spend 2-3 hours/day surfing the internet through their smartphones and internet shops. 

Affordability:
The Markoding e-learning materials can be accessed for free. After completing a module, they will earn badges that can be redeemed as cellphone credits. The value of the cellphone credits are equivalent to cost paid for time required completing the module.

We will use the combination of funding from financial aid, grants, corporate donors, personal and crowd funding. In addition to these main sources, we will commercialize our program by implementing 'one for one' system. This system allows a purchase of one course to fund one disadvantaged youth's program. We will also offer a commercial website development service that is run and maintained by Markoding's graduates. In the next phase, we are planning to generate revenue from our talent recruitment service.

• To get disadvantaged youth to be interested to join the program
  To tackle this issue, we will hold an event to socialize the program. The event will include sharing sessions from inspiring IT figures and opportunities to register on-the-spot.
  
  

• To keep the students motivated
  To motivate them, we implement gamification feature in their learning process.  
  
  

• Funding
  To develop the curriculum and learning materials (videos, animations, etc) to be simple, fun, and appealing to youth age group, we need to hire qualified resources. Moreover, we need the funding to build the technology infrastructures.

Observing how disadvantaged youth are tech savvy, we saw an opportunity to transform them from technology consumers to a generation of workforce with IT skills. In order to deliver this transformation, we need the feedback and network from the SOLVE community. We believe experts in SOLVE will help us innovate and evolve to meet our goal.

In terms of technology, we hope to get partnerships from SOLVE, in particular MITx online learning platform, that can strengthen our curriculum and gamification feature to optimize youth’s learning retention rate. Finally, we need funding to pilot and roll out the program.

We are currently working with communities in Cilincing, Indonesia to develop our pilot. 

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