Cafe Robot, the first non-awkward Computer Club

Cafe Robot was founded in 2018 with the aim to be a little different to your usual tech community. We are inclusive instead of intimidating, lighthearted instead of serious and fun all along the way.

What originally started as a Meet-up in Amsterdam, slowly turned into a community and eventually became what is is today: The first non-awkward Computer Club.

We create learning experiences for code-newbies and hobbyists and help you to get a foot into the industry.

Cafe Robot is currently a one-woman show and ran by me, Valerie. After graduating from a Coding Bootcamp in 2017, I took part in many tech-events and meet-ups and couldn’t help but notice how most of them felt somehow awkward and especially inaccessible for newbies like me.

📷 A robot dancing at a street party. Yes, nerds can be cool!

I would encounter conversations about new technologies I've never heard of, people connecting about having coded at a very young age, and a lot of reminiscing about Flash. And although there is nothing wrong with this, it just didn't feel "right" for me.

I also got bored by how unimaginative most of these events were and started to ask myself: “Can I do this better?”.

Putting my money (effort) where my mouth is, I developed a concept for Cafe Robot. I wanted to create a platform that welcomes newbies, provides large amounts of encouragement and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

We have to understand that technology is everywhere. Which in turn means that everyone needs to be represented in the industry that shapes it.

Building on this mindset, I have put my classes in front of over 350 students, taught multiple coding workshops at creative business school Hyper Island, launched a 4 weeks coding course “JavaScript WTF!?” and recently kicked off “Code Cuisine”, a delicious 2 hours remote workshop where we draw the “dish of the day” with code.

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