On Friday, April 2, 2021, Pascal Siakam of the NBA Toronto Raptors basketball team announced that his foundation, PS43 Foundation, along with Penny Appeal Canada, launched “Coding for Champions,” a computer coding program for kids in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Sixty students from Grade 6-8 at Queen Victoria and Parkdale Jr. & Sr. Public Schools will participate from April-June. The students will receive a laptop, backpack, hoodie, and other supplies.

The students participating in the initiative were selected by each school’s respective principal, who selected kids that have demonstrated an interest in coding. The program will be 10 weeks long and will run between April and June 2021.

I think this is a great initiative that I’m sure will prove to be beneficial for the students.

Steven Psihogios has written a short article over at Yahoo!sports called Pascal Siakam’s foundation launches coding program for kids.

According to the PS43 website, the organization’s mission is to “empower children through education, life skills and mentorship while inspiring them to set any goal despite where their journey may begin or what societal impediments they may face.”

What will the students learn in the program? One thing will have the opportunity to do is to create web pages for the foundation’s website. Participants will keep the equipment beyond the program as The PS43 Foundation Canada and Penny Appeal Canada understand there are limited technical devices shared between multiple individuals in the same household.

Pascal Siakam received the February 2019 NBA Cares Community Assist Award presented by Kaiser Permanente in recognition of his efforts to empower and inspire youth in both local and global communities,