I’ve been working on a project organization that I stumbled upon once while working for the Marianas Business Journal and the Guam Business Magazine, and again upon working at Docomo and meeting the brilliant Chovin Carlson, who started the local chapter of said organization. It’s freeCodeCampGuam, and they we aim to spread awareness and free resources through Guam for coding and IT.
Why do I call it a project organization? Not at all meant to be condescending, but the best imagery I can give you is the garage start-ups of yore; slightly disorganized, maybe aimless, running on the fumes of volunteers and other resources alike (read: money). And just like the iconic garage start-ups, this one is set to take over the world, and I think I just helped put that in motion.
Not many people think of non-profit organizations as businesses, but nothing is further from the truth. Streamlining processes, minimizing overhead, and maintaining your brand are just some objectives that businesses have in common with NGOs. With my entrepreneurial experience, I was glad to bring that missing link to the table. I feel my administrative contribution and business mindset has enabled the team to focus their passion and expertise on what they do best: teach people to code.
In that vein, freeCodeCampGuam has started its second annual Guahan Youth Coders summer program with an emphasis on game development on a platform called PICO-8, which is based on Lua. Chovin has been working on creating a custom course, complete with activities and quizzes, and we hope to get the curriculum shared throughout the world and help put Guam on the map in the game dev community. You can find the course (and enroll!) here on our shiny new website!
I’m so thankful to be part of the organization. It’s so rewarding contributing to such a profound movement on Guam. I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for freeCodeCampGuam. We are definitely going to make waves and touch lives.
Oh, and I’m learning programming now, too!
with ♥ and kindness always,
sky
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