A program that's encouraging children
“Starting a business can be an idea that sprouts from children,” said Qi Jian, CEO of Hangzhou Bianchengxia Co Ltd, at Jiading’s recent Science and Technology 50 Startup Competition.
Holding just such a belief, Qi Jian built an online programming training institution for children last year.
Signing up for a Bianchengxia programing online course can be an eye-opening experience for children. There are three levels of courses, Scratch for animation and game programming skills, Python for developing games, websites and web crawlers and NOIP for knowledge of algorithms.
Chen Cheng, a primary school student who has been taking Scratch lessons at Bianchengxia for six months, has been able to develop a game that features Mario, the hero in video game Super Mario. The game poses a math question and the player must control Mario to get to the apple with the right answer on it.
Though programming for children is a recent concept in China, it has become as popular as the Mathematical Olympiad which used to be for their parents.
When a programming work is completed, children can post it on WeChat for their parents to see.
Qi used to work as a software development engineer at Alibaba and he has every confidence in programming for children.
A 9-year-old girl was once the youngest programmer at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. “Perhaps next year on this Science and Technology 50 stage, we will be able to see two Chinese primary school students presenting their startup projects,” Qi said.