Serving a Sustainable Coding Community: The INBO Coding Club Story

Slides for a lightening talk given at Living Data 2025, October 21 - 24 of 2025
Bogotá, Colombia.
Conference website: https://www.livingdata2025.com/index.html
INBO coding club website: https://coding-club.inbo.be/

Transcript

1. Damiano Oldoni INBO, Belgium Serving a sustainable coding community The INBO Coding Club story 23 October 2018. Photo by Nicole De Groof
2. Damiano Oldoni Authors Raïsa Carmen Emma Cartuyvels Oberon Geunens Dirk Maes Rhea Maesele Hans Van Calster
3. Imagine a place where learning to code is: - collaborative, fun, and open to everyone - regardless of background, experience, age, gender, race Welcome to the INBO Coding Club. Imagine Image by Lisette Brodey from Pixabay
4. - Launched in January 2018 - Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) - Peer-learning R-group - Researchers: biodiversity, ecology - Every month INBO Coding Club Photo by Ben Potter / UAF Jan 2018 - Ancient DNA discovery reveals previously unknown population of native Americans
5. - Pandemic: switch to virtual - Post pandemic cave syndrome: switch to live We survived Meeting room at the Herman Teirlinck building. Photo by the Flemish Authority.
6. Learn Together - Every question is valued - Mistakes are celebrated as learning opportunities 🎉 - No club without interaction Key lesson 1 Hans, Dirk and Els, 23 October 2018. Photo by Nicole De Groof.
7. As Live as Possible, As Remote as Necessary - Live coding in the same room is far more engaging and effective - Hybrid format Key lesson 2 Packed like sardines after being forced to move in two smaller rooms, 24 January 2020. Photo by Damiano Oldoni
8. Key lesson 3 Community-Driven Evolution - The club must follow the needs of its community - Continuous feedback Choose your favourite topic for the session of 28 October 2025 13 responses Voting the topic for October 2025: results .
9. INBO Coding Club core team on 23 Jan 2020. From left to right: Raïsa, Amber, Dirk, Hans, Damiano and Emma. Amber and Hans have since been replaced by Oberon and Rhea. Photo by Els De Bie. Key lesson 4 Dedication - A committed core team - Consistency and sustainability of the club activities
10. Key lesson 5 Full openness - Data, slides, code, and recordings - CC BY 4.0 INBO Coding Club session page with reference material. .
11. Thank you! https:/ /coding-club.inbo.be/ @damianooldoni.bsky.social damiano.oldoni@inbo.be 0000-0003-3445-7562 bit.ly/4he6SWM