Breaking Barriers: Landy’s Mission to Bring Coding Education to Rural Madagascar

Last summer, Landy hosted a coding bootcamp for about a hundred students in rural Madagascar. There, students learned the basics of programming and built 2D games. Landy’s personal experience prompted her to create this bootcamp. “Growing up I didn’t have much access to coding. I found some clubs and small organizations where I could gain access to wi-fi and learn. I wanted to offer students more opportunities than I had and remove some of the barriers that I encountered.”

Now, in response to the success of that first bootcamp, Landy plans to run two a year — in the summer and the winter. Furthermore, she’s created a computer science educational app called Karoka, which translates to “to find” in Malagasy. While this application is for anyone who wants to learn the basics of coding, it will serve as a continuing education and development platform for students after finishing the bootcamp.

However, Landy is not simply interested in the students learning coding. From a wider point of view, she wants to empower them to discover and pursue their passions and ideas, whatever they may be.“My vision is to give coding access to a different hundred students every year so they can learn and develop their coding skills. And, I want them to learn how to learn; that is, to become independent learners.” Both of the above initiatives fall under the umbrella of Landy’s burgeoning non-profit, From and For Mada.