Mr. James Whelton:

I was thinking more I had about 15 seconds at this point. It is very difficult to follow Ms Casey but I will try my best.

I am before the committee as a product of both Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka.

My career as a social entrepreneur is now about two years in the making. My background is I am a 20 year old who came through the usual system of primary school and secondary school, but decided to not go to college, Instead, I opted for a movement that I started with a guy called Mr. Bill Liao in Cork called CoderDojo. Essentially, this grew out of the frustration of being a young person who was not good at guitar or sport and was not good academically, but whose identity was computers in which there was no outlet.

It is quite weird being a social entrepreneur as a young person because the majority of my peers opted for college and there is still that sense of doom and gloom with everybody in my age group. Thankfully, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka gave me great assistance at the start and really brought me to where I needed to be to make CoderDojo into an organisation that operates in 22 countries and has over 180 Dojos which today teach over 10,000 children around the world how to code. Essentially, they showed me that social entrepreneurship was a viable path and gave me considerable support in funding, planning, introductions and so much more.

CoderDojo has always taken the grassroots approach. Initially, we saw that the Government would be more of a hindrance than a benefit starting off and we opted to go directly to the teachers to avoid the Department of Education and Skills and collaborate with organisations such as the GAA and universities.

CoderDojo is addressing the skills gap in that it is a network of free programming clubs that teaches children aged seven to 17 how to programme and is completely free and volunteer driven. It has several aspects that address the social side providing an identity for these young people.

As a society, we are moving more towards this age of the introduction of Bills, particularly in the United States, such as Children's Internet Protection Act, CIPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA, and PROTECT IP Act, PIPA. We are seeing many measures that challenge our digital rights and digital freedoms and as a society, it is important that we have the technical prowess to be able to recognise the danger of these and address them in a fitting manner. CoderDojo, in training a generation of young people in programming and being more adept to technology, allows them to recognise these matters.

Obviously, there is the matter of bridging the educational gap in programming and filling this void that is not being addressed in the schools at present, or that there is not even sufficient information being given in schools. If a person wants to continue a career path in programming, web design or whatever, the increasingly rare breed of career guidance teachers are unable to give sufficient information on this.

On the technological side, it is a pretty amazing idea to think, if a young person has the ability to programme but continues a career in law or government, or in medicine, the person can use his or her technical ability to build something that could revolutionise the system. There is also the economic side. There is a skills shortage. An increasing amount of companies are coming to Ireland because this is an English-speaking country, the corporation tax, etc., but are unable to find the talent to fill these roles, and universities are not pumping out graduates fast enough or at a high enough level for them to be adapted straight away. CoderDojo is addressing these various aspects. With a core value system of keeping everything free, helping each other and being altruistic, we are cultivating this next generation of creators in the correct fashion.

Really, it is the community that is driving this forward, self-selecting people from all over Ireland, and, indeed, the world, who are stepping forward to teach these young people and to facilitate these sessions taking place. The involvement of companies such as Twitter, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, who have recognised CoderDojo as something that was born out of Cork, means they adopting it and bringing it into their offices. Going even further, CoderDojos have been run here in Leinster House on its birthday, in the European Parliament, in the Scottish Parliament and, hopefully, soon in the House of Lords. Indeed, we are working on the White House. Something that was born in Cork is truly blossoming into an international movement through the power of its community, but also with the help of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and Ashoka.

I am not really sure what to ask. I will probably get into trouble here. I will not pretend to know anything that I do not. I am 20. I am still silly by definition. I have got four years until I have to grow up. I will suggest that the discussions continue with the, dare I say it, older and wiser ones in this room.