Teenagers are known for being digital natives, but there is a gap between using new technologies and understanding how it has been built. Moreover, the computer science world is not yet sufficiently attractive amongst young women. The sadly low number of women working in Information Technology motivated the "Women in Engineering group" at Criteo to create the "Journée Aujourd'hui Je Code !" initiative. Our primary goals were to introduce teenagers to computer science, to learn coding basics in a fun environment, to meet engineers and to discover different potential careers in technology. In this talk, we will detail the guiding principles we used to make the workshops interesting for the teenagers. Fun was our top priority, but it was not everything: we had to deal with several questions. What could they learn in such a short time? How could we let them unlock their creativity? How could we best share our passion for programming with them? We wanted them to feel the same emotions that we have when we code. In a second part, we will detail how we developed two workshops, guided by these principles, using Python as the programming language. We will show demos of the two Python programs and how we used them for teaching. Finally, we will share feedback from students and teachers.

1. Syrine Krichene
Software Engineer @ Criteo
How we used Python to introduce
teenagers to the fun of
programming
Anne-Marie Tousch
Research Scientist @Criteo
@amy8492

2. 2 •
Problem
Men
90%
Women
10%
CRITEO R&D EMPLOYEES
WORLDWIDE

3. 3 •
• Women under-representation is a fairly
recent phenomenon
• Many women programmers throughout
history
• We want the young people to embark!
Stereotypes vs. reality

4. 4 •
• Meet women engineers
• Visit our Criteo Paris office
• Have fun & get some swag
• Actually write some code
A day to discover computer
science jobs

5. 5 •
Preparing the coding part
• Discover computer science
• Motivate career choice in computer
science

6. 6 •
The time constraint
1h30

8. 8 •
• Setup and check all the
computers
• Prepare code
No bugs

9. 9 •
• Pair programming
• Unblocker
• Questions
Mentoring

11. 11 •
Have fun
&
Be creative
• Music, games, images and
video, robots
• Immediate feedback

12. 12 •
• Reads like english
• Multi-purpose
• Rich ecosystem
• Used by professionals
Discover a real programming
language

13. 13 •
• Robots
• Games
• Video & pictures processing
• Data processing
• Artifical intelligence
• …
Discover computer science
topics

14. 14 •
• High school Maths
• High school Physics
• English!
Apply what you already know

15. 15 •
• It feels good to learn
• Step-by-step discoveries
Progress

16. Color-switch
alike game

17. 17 •

18. 18 •
• Have fun
-> Play Games
-> Win the Game
-> Be the best at your game !
• Be creative:
-> change the game's set up
-> change the rules
-> change the graphics
...
Have fun
&
Be creative

19. 19 •
• Simple functions
for loops
if conditions
Discover a real
programming language
for i in range(3):
print(“Hi ”, i)
Hi 0
Hi 1
Hi 2
0 1 2
for i in range(3):
print(“Hi ”, i)
Hi 0
Hi 1
Hi 2
0 1 2for i in range(3):
print(“Hi ”, i)
Hi 1
Hi 2
0 1 2for i in range(3):
print(“Hi ”, i) Hi 2
0 1 2for i in range(3):
print(“Hi ”, i)
0 1 2

20. 20 •
• Simple functions
for loops
if conditions
• Using libraries: Kivy
Learn to look for information on the web!
read the documentation
Discover a real
programming language

21. 21 •
• Create games:
Action on clicks
Animation
Discover computer science
topics

22. 22 •
• Create games:
Action on clicks
Animation
Graphics
Discover computer science
topics

23. 23 •
• Create games:
Action on clicks
Animation
Graphics
Frame displays
Widget interactions (master and slave)
Discover computer science
topics

24. 24 •
• Create games:
Action on clicks
Animation
Graphics
Frame displays
Widget interactions (master and slave)
Progress
Game hacking
Discover computer science
topics

25. 25 •
Apply what you already know
• Physics
Use positions to check collisions
Increase the speed
• Math​
Use variables to automate changes​
• Logic
Realistic animation​
Scoring rules
• Geometry and drawings
Create the widgets graphics

26. 26 •
• Workshop + presentation
• Increase difficulty
• Discover different parts of the game
• Let's hack and play the game !
Progress

27. Crazy filters

28. 28 •
• Teens love Snapshat & Instagram
• Even basic image processing is
fun
• Use the webcam for immediate
feedback
Get creative

29. 29 •
• Powered by Kivy & Numpy
• Boosted with OpenCV
• GUI to ease testing
• Commented in french
Python
main.py
transforms.py

30. 30 •
• Digital images
• Use RGB color system to
create custom colorizations
Image processing

31. 31 •
• Draw rectangles
• Draw flags
• Combine effects
• Use OpenCV…
… AI inside !!!
From simple to complex
Demo time!

32. 32 •
• The image coordinate system
• How do you draw a star?
Maths to the rescue

34. 34 •
Students
« avoir passé une journée chez Criteo m'a apporté bien plus que je
ne l’imaginais. »
« j'ai particulièrement aimé cette joie qui nous
a été communiquée, jointe à l'envie de créer et
de programmer en découvrant de nouvelles
choses. »

35. 35 •
• Exercises are not easy!
Teachers

36. 36 •
• Close mentoring
• Competition helps creativity
• Don’t hide code difficulty
Take-aways

37. 37 •
• Contact CGénial if you want to participate
• Checkout our code on https://github.com/criteo/je-code-crazy-filters
We’re doing it again soon!