CoderDojo: Changing the face of tech learning as we know it

You might not care much about code, but someone out there does. But they need you to also care about them in order to realise that potential just bubbling under the surface to be unleashed.

Some of our brightest minds come from very unprivileged backgrounds. Perhaps, it's the fact their lives weren't blighted by spoils such as TV or plentiful toys that allowed their imagination to know no bounds. Or perhaps it's just in their DNA. It's hard to psycho analyse sometimes. Whatever the reason, we can't allow innovation to stagnate.

Our country's future, the future of business as we know it and our future really does depend on it. You might not care much about code, but someone out there does. But they need you to also care about them in order to realise that potential just bubbling under the surface to be unleashed. If you've read this far, you work in IT and have done OK. So pay it forward and give something - anything - back.

I'll leave you with the words of a self-confessed business 'mountain climber' in the form of Stephen Kelly, former Government COO and current CEO of Sage. He's passionate about not just SMBs, but about empowering the next generation of IT and business leaders.

Kelly gets it and he wants you to get it too - regardless of which initiative you happen to favour. After all, they have a common end goal so you're simply taking a different path to help affect the same change, the same result.

"Some per cent of SMBs in the UK don't have a website. And 10.4 million people in the UK are digitally excluded. So we still have a job to do," he said. "It's so important for the vibrancy of the economy in the UK. If you're not doing anything with CodeDojo, pick up the phone. If you're not doing anything with ON UK, do it."

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.