2022: Things are on the up

This year saw many of our workshops return to in-person, we saw the launch of four new chapters around the world and our first virtual only chapter, and the launch of our very first Impact Report. Oh, and a new job board. Fair to say it was a very good year!

Let’s celebrate our most important moments of the year, and look ahead at what’s next for us in 2023.

Our 2022 Highlights

The return of codebar Festival

In March, after 4 months of preparation and hard work, we ran our second codebar Festival. Over 600 community members from 20 countries took part in the virtual event. It was an incredible 3 days packed full of talks, demos, workshops, panels, and a job fair. You can watch some of it back here.

Plans are well underway for next year! The event will look a little different as it will be 2 days instead of 3. Day 1 will be technical workshops, and day 2 will be sessions on all things tech, career, and wellbeing. The CFP is now open if you’d like to submit a session. We strongly encourage anyone to submit their idea, even if you’ve never done a talk before! This is the perfect opportunity to bring your vision to life. If you’d like to talk to us about your idea before submitting it, please drop us an email at hello@codebar.io.

uncodebar

This year saw the return of in-person uncodebar — our annual unconference. 100 people gathered at the Google HQ office in Kings Cross, London to share knowledge, strengthen the community that supports our workshops and network.

This event felt so special after running it virtually for 2 years and is always an absolute highlight of the year. We’re already excited for uncodebar 9 in 2023!

codebar Impact Report

Our first Impact Report details the initiatives that we have organised as part of our goal to make tech careers more accessible for minority groups. This was an important moment for us as it allowed us to take stock of the impact our workshops have made and plan for our future.

You can take a look at the full report here ➡️ https://impact-report-22.codebar.io/. You can also see a short video version here ➡️ https://youtu.be/xJ6eJojBvPY.

New Chapters

This year we launched several new codebar chapters around the world. We launched chapters in Geneva, Brussels, Delhi, and Lagos. If you know of anyone in these locations who would like to attend our workshops as a student or coach, please tell them about us.

We also launched our first virtual-only chapter — Virtual UK. You can attend this virtual workshop from anywhere, it will simply be in UK timezone. Remember all our workshops are completely free and you can attend them as often as you’d like.

New Job Board

We sneakily launched a new job board a few months ago without telling anyone. Have you seen it yet 👀 https://jobs.codebar.io/

Education Beyond Workshops

In 2022, we continued to serve our community with events beyond our regular coding workshops. We ran 13 one-off events including — A Bitesize Introduction to the Cloud and Infrastructure as Code, a Version Control, Git/Github Workshop, 2 Raspberry Pi workshops in Scotland, and a whole evening dedicated to all things freelancing.

These events were particularly successful and are something we plan to do lots more of in 2023. If you have an idea for a one-off event please let us know.

Also this year:

• Makers gave 12 people the opportunity to complete their Bootcamp for free
• We had a great time partnering with many conferences — including CBF Fest, HalfStack, CityJS, and Level Up Summit
• We started running virtual Open Days which was an opportunity for new community members to come and ask questions about attending.

What We Are Looking Forward to in 2023

codebar Festival — in-person and virtual

Our third codebar Festival will be happening on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th of March 2023. We understand how much you all love getting together but also understand how important it is that everyone has access to this event, which is why it will be in-person and streamed.

We are currently looking for sponsors so we can financially support as many community members to attend in-person as possible. And we pay all our speakers! If sponsorship is something you/your company could support, please drop us an email.

You will be able to RSVP for codebar Festival from Monday 6th February 2023.

codebar Job Fair

This year we ran a job fair as part of codebar Festival. It was a huge success, and led many of our community members to new positions at Compare the Market, Global, T.Rowe Price, and IDBS to name a few.

Following this success, we’ll be running the virtual job fair again next year — this time, as its own event! It’s still in the works, but one thing we can say for sure… is to put the evening of Monday 12 June 2023 in your calendar. We already have 2 amazing companies signed up! If you/your company would like to take part, drop us an email.

We want to round off the year by saying a huge thank you to every single person who is involved with codebar — from our amazing organisers to our wonderful coaches and our dedicated students. You are what makes codebar so special. The past few years have been challenging, but with your continued support, it’s starting to feel like we’re coming back to life. We’re so excited for what’s to come in the year ahead. Have a wonderful and much-deserved rest over the break, and we’ll see you in 2023 ❤️