KidsCode’s Jordan Casey lands €5,000 Accenture prize

22 Dec 2015

Accenture’s recent innovation challenge judged 15-year-old Jordan Casey’s KidsCode top of the class, landing the youngster €5,000 and a workshop with an entrepreneur.

Seeing off tough competition from 100 other entrants, Casey’s idea for KidsCode eventually trumped Edel Browne’s Free Feet entry (2nd place and €500).

The idea behind KidsCode creates an online world aiming to get kids into computer programming, combining a fun, multiplayer experience with visual programming.

It basically lets kids, for free, log in and create a character, programming their way around to establish games with friends. In a pretty cool twist, children will be working with CloudScript, KidsCode’s custom-built programming language.

At first, CloudScript will act as a drag- and drop-based application, but as the user becomes more and more comfortable and experienced with it, the difficulty level increases, allowing real coding.

Applications were taken at Web Summit earlier this year, with each entrant asked to submit an innovation idea across a range of areas like cognitive computing, machine learning, app development, analytics, health, life sciences, career development, gaming or marketing.

Browne’s Free Feet idea, which landed second after the 100 entries were whittled down to a five-way shortlist, is aimed at medical therapy.

Focused on Parkinson’s sufferers, Free Feet is a device to alleviate the severity of gait freezing, which occurs when the body has a deficiency in dopamine, and results in the legs and feet freezing leaving sufferers with a feeling of being ‘stuck to the ground’.

Medal image via Shutterstock

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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