Dalia's Book

My organization is building an online school where kids learn coding from technology professionals through live lessons.

So far we reached over 2500 kids in Romania and proved that our approach of bringing quality education to kids faster, works. 

If selected as a winner, the funding will be used to:

• develop an online platform where volunteers and kids from anywhere in the world can access the courses, and parents can see the progress of their kids
• develop new education content: building learning tracks that take kids from 0 and make them software developers; for example, they could sign up for the Mobile Development track, and in 1-2 years they would be able to deploy their own app in Google Play
• expand our team to scale our operations and reach more kids
• expand in other countries in the world; we already planned a pilot with partners from Rwanda and Japan, but due to lack of human resources and funding we had to postpone it
• adapt courses for kids with other disabilities, such as visual impairements

I am originally from Romania, currently living in Tokyo, Japan. I have a Bachelor and Master Degree in Computer Science and have been working in tech for almost 15 years. 

I was the same as the kids I want to help: I grew up in scarcity and lack in a small town in Romania, where everything was limited. My vision of the world started to change when I was 11 and received a second-hand 486 computer that I started to play with. I knew back then that I was going to have a career in tech. 

Now, I build technology that shapes this world. 

I believe that people like me, us who shape the world we live in through our creations, are responsible to ensure that today's kids are not left out of the world that we are building for tomorrow because they can't acquire the right skills. That's why I'm creating a platform for a community of people like me to contribute hands-on in narrowing the opportunity gap in education by becoming mentors that and reach the kids who traditionally would be left behind because they do not have such opportunities in their communities.

65% of kids in primary school today will work in jobs that don't exist yet, but education systems worldwide are very slow to adapt, still preparing them for the jobs of the past. In a context where millions of jobs will be displaced by automation by 2030, relevant education is the most critical weapon for vulnerable kids to break the poverty cycle by having access to good jobs. Without it, they are set up for a lifelong of vulnerability and perpetuate the disadvantage to their future children.

Dalia's Book is an online school where kids learn coding through live lessons from technology experts who become their teachers. 

We grew rapidly, from 100 weekly active students in March 2020 to over 1500 in March 2021. Over 400 different mentors taught coding to over 2500 kids.

Our kids are from Romania, over 50% from rural areas and small towns, and a few are hearing impaired. Our mentors are Romanians working and living worldwide.

We proved that it works in Romania, now we want to take it globally.

• all our teachers are technology professionals who are either Computer Science students or work for tech companies
• our curriculum is designed to be close to real-life work environments: kids take the roles of developers and designers, and work in teams by following modern software development agile methodologies
• kids learn in small groups of maximum 6, from different parts of the countries or the world
• we integrate hearing impaired kids as part of teams with kids who can hear

Our Marketing and Community Development strategies are focused around building a community of technology professionals worldwide that is empowered to make a difference in the life of kids. We have a dedicated community management team that is organizing events for mentors and developing partnerships with tech companies and other tech communities. This strategy has helped double the number of mentors in less than 3 months. We're also partnering with schools and school districts, and these partnerships lead to half of the kids who sign up.

Our Learning Experience strategy consists of bringing kids the role models they need to support them in making their dreams come true. They learn from real-world technology professionals and have direct contact with companies and the world of work. They learn early on in their lives about potential career paths in technology and have the doors open to potential employers.

Our courses are either free of charge for the parents, which lead to our greates success yet: an NPS of 95.5% from parents and almost 50% kids who sign up for the following class immediately after they graduate.

We proved this concept in Romania, and we want to take it to the whole world.