16 January 2019
Fifth year Freddie Nicholson is celebrating his selection as a Google Grand Prize Winner in the global tech giant’s annual international competition for young coders, Google Code-in 2018. As a prize winner, Freddie will be off to visit the Google headquarters and enjoy some Californian sunshine this summer.
Freddie faced tough competition with 3,124 students from 77 countries taking part in the contest. Only 54 Grand Prize Winners were selected. In total the UK had six Grand Prize Winners, behind India which topped the table with 18 and the US with nine.
The winners were announced on 7 January following seven weeks of competition which ended in December.
The competition is open to pre-university teenagers aged 13-17 who completed 15,323 coding tasks working with 27 international organisations that are chosen by Google to be part of the competition. Freddie was one of two winners who worked with Sugar Labs on a range of projects including 'Music Blocks', an open source learning platform designed for teaching younger children the basics of programming through musical concepts.
The Grand Prize Winners will all receive a four-night, expenses-paid trip to Google's Headquarters in Mountain View, California in June or July 2019. Freddie will meet Google engineers, including one of the mentors he worked with during the contest, and enjoy some fun in California with the other winners.
Further information: https://codein.withgoogle.com
