UBBU-Learn to Program received the highest Social Impact Title (TIS) ever, worth 1,050,000 euros, and this is not the first time it has been awarded: in 2015 it was awarded the first TIS in Portugal. The objective of this project is to increase the level of digital literacy of students in the 1st and 2nd cycle of basic education over the next three years, allowing free access to programming classes to the schools that integrate it. Fundação Altice, Banco Montepio, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa and Siemens are the project’s financiers, which will be evaluated by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, which is an action of INCoDe.2030.
“This TIS and the support of our partners will allow us to take the teaching of computational thinking and programming to thousands of children in public schools in Portugal, as in other countries in Europe and the world”, says João Magalhães, CEO of UBBU. “UBBU helps teachers and, in a fun way, equips students with these essential skills, while helping to improve their school performance,” he adds.
Public schools are the target of this program, namely schools in Greater Lisbon, which represents a universe of 167 groups and around 150,000 students from the 1st to the 6th grade. In these schools, computer science thus becomes a subject accessible to all students, in a face-to-face or remote format.
Applications are made by the school groups themselves at links.ubbu.io/2021. Private schools enjoy a trial period, also free of charge, at www.ubbu.io.
Through didactic and interactive contents – which stimulate children’s logical, algorithmic and problem-solving skills – it is proven that learning Computer Science improves grades in Mathematics, and with UBBU, this improvement can reach 17%. Classes are based on real-life issues and depart from the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for future conscious citizens.
Social Impact Titles, operated by Portugal Inovação Social (a tool of the Portuguese Government, with the support of the European Union), exist since 2015 to encourage investment by private companies in innovative projects that respond to social challenges, this investment being reimbursed through the achievement of measurable results previously contracted for each TIS.
Six years after the launch of the first TIS in Portugal, UBBU is once again worthy of this mechanism, this time with a record amount: TIS can go up to 1,050,000 euros, divided into annual tranches of 350,000 euros.
More information here.