London’s Apps for Good teams up with Facebook to teach unemployed youth to code social apps

Just as learning to speak English is important to conduct business in the global economy, digital literacy is fast-becoming essential to create businesses online.

Last August, we covered UK’s Apps for Good program, a really impressive platform for young people to learn the skills necessary to create mobile and Facebook apps. The open-source educational network grew out of the efforts of Apps for Good’s CEO Iris Lapinski with support from the non-profit organisation CDI Europe.

Today, Apps for Good announces that it’s teamed up with Facebook to offer young, unemployed 16-24 year olds from across London the chance to learn how to design, code and build social applications via its new training course. The course will offer young people the chance to learn how to build Facebook applications focused on positive social impacts, as well as how to take these apps to market as entrepreneurs.

“Facebook is delighted to be working with Apps for Good again to help bring to life a course which has the potential to help young people in the UK and beyond,” said Simon Milner, Director of Policy UK and Ireland, Facebook. “Technological and entrepreneurial skills are in great demand in today’s digital society and this course is a great way for young people to improve their employability while building tools, apps and services that could transform the society we live in.”

The is the 2nd pilot course Apps for Good and Facebook have partnered for, which will run for 10 weeks (4 days a week) starting on May 15th, 2012 at the High Trees Community Development Trust. The course is open to young people aged 16-24 who live in London and is 100% free of cost.

The program’s first pilot took place at the Brixton Vox late last year. Watch the video footage here:

Young people enrolled in the course will be advised by some of the UK’s leading technology companies such as Dell, Thomson Reuters and Techlightenment, an Experian company that develops social media technology. Students will learn the basics of web development like HTML 5, as well as more advanced coding such as PHP for more complex apps and SQL for databases. This July, students will present their social applications to industry experts at a graduation ceremony to be held at Facebook’s London Headquarters.

“Over the coming months the details of the Facebook – Apps for Good course will be made available to developers and educators across the globe, via the Apps for Good online platform to enable the scheme to be replicated across the world anywhere,” says Satwant Singh Kenth, Apps for Good’s Education Officer.

Applications for the program are open now and will be accepted until April 27th, 2012.

➤ Interested in signing up to the course? Visit the Apps For Good Facebook page.