Tech is for Kids

TechIsforKids_head

Most of us humans, especially the non-tech-savvy ones, have a complex relationship with technology. On the other hand it makes our lives easier – imagine all the stuff you can do just with your phone and your laptop. However, when it comes to understanding why your cellphone thinks you’re in Greece when you’re actually at the Center Campus of University of Helsinki, you might feel quite lost.

We all have plenty of friends stating that they’re just “bad with computers”. If using new software seems difficult at first, they give up. How applications work seems to be a great, almost divine mystery. This makes it easy to follow the instructions of Arthur Weasley: “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain!”.

Suddenly, a wild Finn appears, stating that she will create a children’s book about coding and technology for 4–7 year old kids. A story of a little girl called Ruby and her adventures. And even though Ruby’s world is full of amazing opportunities, it has nothing to do with magic.

The girl behind Ruby

The author of Hello Ruby is Linda Liukas, whose career seems to be a collection of projects making technology more approachable. She is the founder or Rails Girls community that helps women to get started with technology and teaches the basics of programming. Rails Girls workshops have been organized in over 160 cities. She has also been working at Codecademy, an education startup teaching people to code.

To make little Ruby alive, Liukas started a 30-day Kickstarter project to collect 10 000 dollars to hire an editor and print the hardcover books. Launched yesterday, the project has now collected over 100 000 dollars and has more than 2500 backers. This might easily be the most successful Finnish crowdfunding campaign ever.

TechIsforKids_lilStill afraid of tech?

If you want to start your own journey in the adventurous world of technology, start easily by reading Ruby’s Christmas Calendar (just click the arrow on left to go through all the posts). It teaches 24 little things about her world – like the fact that “Snowleopard and Android disagree on many things, but Ruby thinks they both are good-hearted and will learn to live together”.

I think you’re going to love it. And if you love it, you should back the project on Kickstarter.

Pictures in this blog post are snapped from Hello Ruby Kickstarter video.