Python User Group (PUB)

📆 Agenda

• 19:00 Welcome to the PUB (Python Users Berlin) – setting up
• 19:15 Main talk
• 20:00 Lightning talks
• 20:30 Social gathering

🎙 Main talk by Matthias Kirschner: Let’s spark children’s interest in coding
– Our experiences and how you can contribute
Today it is impossible to imagine daily life without software. The majority of us can’t spend a single day without using it. People use software in the workplace, on laptops, and on mobile phones. Software is also found in less obvious places however: in trains, cars, televisions, washing-machines, fridges, and many other devices. None of these devices could function without software. Without software we couldn’t write e-mails, make phone calls, go shopping, or travel as we are accustomed to. Software is our society’s central tool. How do we ensure that the next generation is motivated and capable of shaping technology for society’s benefits?
Through the book Ada & Zangemann – A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream the Free Software Foundation Europe’s volunteers and staff have interacted with over 1700 children between 6 to 10 years in the past months. Children, especially girls, afterwards were motivated to start experimenting with hardware and software. In the discussions we saw that they realise how crucial technology will be for them. Furthermore with the FSFE's coding competition Youth Hacking 4 Freedom we gathered experiences working with teenagers who program, tinker, and have fun with software.
Learn more about the experiences how the FSFE sparks children’s and teenagers interest to tinker, experiment and program. Furthermore you will see how fulfilling those activities can be for yourself.

🧑‍💻 About Matthias Kirschner
Matthias Kirschner is President of FSFE. In 1999 he started using GNU/Linux and realised that software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives. Matthias is convinced that this technology has to empower society not restrict it. While studying Political and Administrative Science he joined FSFE in 2004.
He helps other organisations, companies and governments to understand how they can benefit from Free Software – which gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt, and share software – and how those rights help to support freedom of speech, freedom of press or privacy.
In his spare time Matthias wrote the book Ada & Zangemann – A Tale of
Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream, which is available at
publishers in English, German, French, and Italian, and translated into
Arabic, Valencian, Danish, Spanish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Dutch and
other languages.

📚 Resources

• Ada & Zangemann – A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream
• fsfe.org
• https://mastodon.social/@kirschner

⚡️ Lightning talks
We would like you to give a lightning talk (shorter than 10 minutes) about what you are doing with Python.