Coding for a Cause: Redmond Students Create Free Courses for Kids

Meet the Redmond students who are making coding education accessible to kids across the Pacific Northwest, while also promoting environmental sustainability through e-waste collection.

Coding for a Cause: Redmond Students Create Free Courses for Kids

As a programmer, I’ve always been passionate about sharing my knowledge with others. That’s why I was inspired by the story of Shrey Shah, a ninth-grader from Redmond High School who noticed a gap in coding education within elementary and middle schools. This realization sparked an initiative: providing free, live, online coding education across the Pacific Northwest.

Introducing coding to the next generation

Shah, along with co-founder Eric Gee and three other ninth-grade students, launched the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit Redmond Coding Association (RCA) in the summer of 2022. The organization’s mission is to provide online events for elementary school students, including introduction classes with coding programs such as Python and Scratch.

“Introducing Python to the course material is when the RCA hit its first milestone, and classes began to grow from 15 to over 115 people.” - Shrey Shah

Courses offered by RCA cater to various levels and age groups, covering a spectrum of programming techniques from basic to advanced. Topics include robotics, animation, artificial intelligence, and game and website development.

Robotics in action

In addition to coding courses, RCA also provides career development courses instructed by technology professionals and college students from companies like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, and universities like Princeton, Yale, and the University of Washington.

“Our mission is focused toward a waste-to-education initiative, which is pretty unique to our organization.” - Shrey Shah

The RCA also hosts in-person events where people can drop off old computers, desktops, and other electronics at a designated location. The organization’s volunteers salvage old computer parts from the e-waste drive for a Computers 101 course series, educating students on each component of a computer, how it works, and how to use each piece to build a computer.

E-waste collection event

Since starting the waste-to-education initiative, the organization has held two events in Redmond, collecting over 2,800 pounds of e-waste.

As RCA expands, the organization plans to offer more online courses and host e-waste collection events across the Eastside and Seattle in 2024, alongside a summer hackathon.

“We had so much fun. We stayed up the entire night because one of our programs needed debugging, but it was such a fun experience with all the food, the music, all that stuff.” - Shrey Shah

The hackathon aims to bring together around 200 to 300 people in July or August, providing an opportunity for students to have a fun and engaging experience with coding.

Hackathon excitement

Although the board members will be gearing up for college next year, the organization will continue to grow its initiatives, with plans to appoint other students to their current roles.