14-year-old sets up free coding camp for students

He’s just 14 and is set to launch a coding club in the city. Meet Krish Samtani of 0Gravity

At a time when most people his age spend their days gaming and earning brownie points from peers, 14-year-old Krish Samtani has his sights elsewhere. He developed a love for coding, took it a notch further and launched 0Gravity coding club in Bengaluru. 0Gravity, a free coding club that opened to resounding response, aims to impart training in applied computer science to children by experienced volunteers. And now, the teenager is set to bring the club to Chennai as well.

To be launched by host company Saggezza in IIT Madras Research Park, 0Gravity is open to children between the ages of 10 and 15. “We partner with local NGOs and schools to bring in enthusiastic, interested children,” says Samtani, adding, “Our first course is based on using HTML, CSS and JavaScript for Web Design and Programming. Participants will learn how to create scripts, resulting in use of their creativity to make their own websites of their choice. The course lasts three months, and will be followed up by our next course, which is based on Solving Analytical Problems using Python.”

Students receive a completion certificate at the end of the course, which is a project-based programme. “As the name ‘0Gravity’ suggests, the possibilities that these courses open are endless. We hope the course will not only provide children with this essential skill which will be necessary in the future, but also leave them with a spark which will inspire them to take up computer science in the future,” he says.

For Samtani, whose father is a coder himself, his love affair with coding began at a young age. “I’ve been attending various classes and courses to do with computer science since I was eight. I would enjoy customising pictures and making movies using Flash and Photoshop. I had no idea where I could use these skills in real life, though. However, when I attended summer camps at NYU Stern in 2015 and Johns Hopkins University in 2016, I got practical exposure to computer science: applying it in making games, and mathematical modelling,” he says.

When he returned to India, he was determined to join a coding club to see how coding could be used in everyday life. “But there were none. It was then that 0Gravity took seed. It took us over six months to plan and launch our first coding club. During this time, we also launched our website — www.0Gravity.org.”