As a student for the last three years, the rise in student hackathon and any tech-related activity has been nothing short of immense.
I think a big part of that is thanks to students like those behind HackLondon and similar events who work tirelessly (and sleepless-ly) to get people excited and sharing their work.
I don't think the post is arguing that the student tech scene is weak, just fragmented. These are amazing successes - it'd be great to have heard about them.
It would be such a boost for the student scene to hear from such student-born startups and learn/look up to them.
I definitely don't think it's about whether UCL is leading the way or King's.
This is a great point - I think the article really fails to acknowledge that there is a heavy technical presence behind this initiative. Amongst the advisors are people like Rohan Silva, Zach Sims, and several CTOs and founders that are extremely well-placed to direct the initiative properly.
It might have been a clumsy performance, but there's a serious need to address the current under-qualification of teachers to teach programming in schools so we should be glad someone, somewhere has found financial and political backing to tackle it.
> The only exception is when smartphones’ use is assigned by a teacher.