We’re all using Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox as well as Social Media, but what about making the web your own space?
As a part of Campus Party 2013, Think Big School wants to encourage young people to not just use the web but to actually make it. Nick Hurd, UK Minister for Civil Society took to the stage – “Today is all about not just having fun but having the chance of being confident and learn and gain digital skills. The future is digital. More and more jobs are going to depend on the level of digital skills. That’s the chance for our young people to tap into that and be part of the moment – from using the internet to actually making it.”
Someone who has done this already is Michael Acton Smith. As the founder of Mind Candy, he created Moshi Monsters – an online world of adoptable pet monsters for kids which now has over 80 million registered users. It has also expanded offline with a range of various books, magazines and toys. For Michael, Campus Party is an amazing event which allows young people to take their idea to create stuff and let two billion people in the world potentially experience it: “You don’t even need to be a developer to create stuff online, there is so many fantastic easy tools outside you can use. Knowing how to use them, combined with extraordinary ideas, young people can literally change the world.”
Know-how is the key, and that inspired a group of students to develop a tool named Freeformers, which makes creating a webpage as easy as your daily post on facebook. To encourage other people of their age to get comfortable using web tools, the members of Freeformers are going into different organisations to teach how to innovate ideas and how to code your own webpage – in 10 seconds or less. With Freeformers, you can get instant results through real life programming. With the help and support of Think Big Freeformers can immerse thousands of people in technology and help young people become digital leaders of the future.