Two weeks, one app
The Toronto Campus opened its doors to 90 high school students on June 8 for a free two-week coding camp. Participants come from 31 schools across the city, and more than half had never written code before.
Each day starts with a short lesson on a web programming concept, followed by several hours of building. Students work in teams of four, and each team is paired with a university computer science major who serves as mentor. By the final day, every team will present a working web app to an audience of families, teachers and local tech employers.
What they're building
Projects this year include a tool that lets students swap used textbooks between schools, a map of free study spaces in public libraries, and an app that tracks bus arrivals at stops near participants' homes. The teams choose their own problems, and most picked something they deal with every day.
Camp director Priya Nair said the goal is not to turn every participant into a programmer. It is to show them that building software is something ordinary people do, and that they can do it too.
University student mentors earn a stipend and receive training in working with teenagers. Several of this year's mentors attended the camp themselves in its first year.
Who can attend
The camp is free, including lunch and transit passes. Priority goes to students from schools with limited computer science offerings. Applications for summer 2027 open in March on the camp page.
The camp is supported by the Toronto Campus's computer science department and by donations from local alumni.
