More and more countries are involving young children in digitalization and sustainability projects. Kids often say it's about making the world a better place.

In Belgium, more than 30 children participated in Coolest Projects (link, in French and Dutch), an inventor event sponsored by CoderDojo Belgium. CoderDojo is a non-profit organization that offers free programming classes to children and young people aged 7-18. The goal of the event is to encourage young people to develop ideas and products using coding and digitization.

In Coolest Project 2022, 32 participants presented 23 projects. Inventions proved to be very imaginative and some of them were highly applicable to real market conditions. For example, children created a solar panel that rotates with the sun. Interestingly, similar technology is being used in a test in Tel Aviv, Israel, where the rotation technology is combined with a material that generates solar power and provides shade at the same time. At the same time, the data center industry is very much interested in optimizing solar power to use as backup power or even to meet baseload demands, where follow-the-sun features may prove very useful.

Using AI, another group has developed an Autonomous Darts Robot that can play darts independently and be better at darts than an average person. An award-winning project involved a digital learning board that assisted teachers and students in improving their learning processes.

A one-person project won the prize for best project. A young boy created a multilingual website that visitors can use to calculate their impact on the planet and get tips on reducing it.

Photo credit: CoderDojo Belgium