Speechmatics develop community partnership with ChYpPS to teach kids coding in Cambridge

Some Speechmatics volunteers attended ChYpPS last month to provide coding sessions, where children learned how to use the programming language Scratch, to build a Ghostbusters Code Club game as well as the classic game Pong.

Speechmatics is pleased to announce a community partnership with Cambridge-based youth group, ChYpPS. The partnership aims to improve the coding skills of children in Cambridge. ChYpPS is a youth group based at Brown’s Field Youth and Community Centre in Arbury and is organiszd by the Cambridge City Council. ChYpPS stands for Children and Young People’s Participation Service and works with children and young people of all ages across Cambridge to organize community activities in local neighborhoods.

Since this session, both ChYpPs and Speechmatics have been eager to initiate a structured partnership, delivering consistent monthly sessions that the children can look forward to and develop their coding skills. We’re happy to confirm that we’ll be delivering sessions at the community centre on the second Thursday of every month in a bid to improve the coding skills of children at the centre and in local neighborhoods. We have already invested in the equipment for the children to use to develop their skills, including 20 complete Raspberry Pi kits, meaning that we can train up to 40 children in one go. This will help us to make the most out of this partnership and give something practical back to the local community.

Speechmatics is very excited for the future of this partnership and we’re looking forward to seeing the improvements in the children’s coding skills. Richard Silk, a Programmer at Speechmatics who initiated the partnership said,

“It was great to see how much the children learned in just one session at ChYpPS last time. On a personal level, I am very much looking forward to doing it again and to see further improvements in the children’s coding ability.”

Interested to learn more about what Speechmatics do for the community? Take a look at some recent activities that we’ve done with Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, our charity of the year, including the team’s latest volunteering day at the hospital. Ben Leaman, Speechmatics