Australian high schoolers build coding platform to help learners in Sri Lanka

Summary

Computer coding captured Neth Dharmasiri's 11-year-old imagination when his father handed him a beginner's guide to Python — one of the world's most popular coding languages."Here I am, six years later still coding," the now-17-year-old said."It is difficult ... [but] that appeals to me because I have a curiosity within myself to fix problems."A year ago Neth took on his biggest challenge yet.Taking a leaf from Microsoft founder Bill Gates' playbook, he set himself the task of building his own basic programming language."I've been developing it for the past year and doing a lot of user interface changes on it but it's a fully functioning programming language," Neth said.Neth has developed a computer app aimed at giving users a basic understanding of coding concepts. (ABC News: Charlie McLean)Education experts say knowing how to code is becoming as important for students as numeracy and literacy.But Neth, who migrated to Australia from Sri Lanka, knows learning the foundational computer science skill is a luxury not available to every student."I can look around and there are tonnes of monitors around me, whereas [in rural Sri Lanka] a lot of them come from farming backgrounds. They don't have a lot of resources, definitely don't have a lot of technology."Neth began coding at just 11 years of age. (ABC News: Charlie McLean)A eureka momentOn a trip to his parents' homeland of Sri Lanka last year, Neth had a eureka moment; an idea to take his new programming language global and make a difference.While stopped at a tiny rural village, Neth stumbled across a computer lab. "They had six computers and the kids were watching YouTube, doing tutorials and stuff on it," he said."I just felt the technology was really empowering them and I thought that everyone should have access to this education." Neth came up with the idea to develop a course on coding while on a trip to his parents' homeland of Sri Lanka last year. (Supplied)When he returned to Australia, Neth and his friend ...