Celebrating Kids in WordPress

Among the speaker list for this year’s WordCamp Miami, you might have missed something unique about a couple of them—they’re kids:

• 10-year-old Jayda Washington-Boothe
• 11-year-old Miles Lifton

[pullquote]Of course, being a kid is far from disqualifying.[/pullquote] And WordCamp Miami’s inclusion of kids in their speaker lineup serves as a good reminder about the importance of encouraging kids in technology, so we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to highlight it. Jayda has been coding since kindergarten and is now a third-grade honor roll student. She’s a proud member of Black Girls Code and recently started using WordPress. She’s also got big dreams: “Her future dream is to run track and field in the Olympics, become an engineer, and own and build her own mansion and homeless shelter.” Miles has several years of programming experience, with a specialty in Python and knowledge in C/C++, HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript and more. Miles has served as a committee member for Be The Difference Foundation, Sofia’s Hope, and Polyblox Totems educational toys. You can check out Miles’ WordPress chops with LanguageIsNotaBarrier.com, a site devoted to fostering world peace.

Kids at WordCamp

This year’s WordCamp Miami offered a special kids camp, including tracks for two different age groups and a kids panel. That’s right, a panel of kids to share insights for adults: “Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product makers to know what the next generation is using.” Focusing on kids at WordCamp is nothing new—one of the first instances was Phoenix back in 2011—but it’s exciting to see it continue. You can also check out the recap video from WordCamp Miami 2017 to see their work with kids:

Encouraging Kids in Tech

It’s always encouraging to see kids getting involved in technology. How often does the bio of a WordPress pro include something about coding their first site as a teen (or younger)? Whether it’s coding or creating, the kids are doing something. It reminds us of our free ebook, Kids Creating Stuff Online: Inspiring the Innovators of the Future. For more on getting kids involved in tech, check out the book So, You Want to Be a Coder? and organizations such as The Div, Code.org, honorCode, Black Girls Code, Kids & Code, and many others.