To hone their computing skills, children aged from 8 to 13 will be offered free lessons at summer computing camps run by the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University. 

QCRI will run separate programs for age groups 8-10 and 11-13 from Sunday, July 15 to Thursday, July 26. No prior experience is required.

QCRI's Director of Educational Initiatives, Dr Eman Fituri, said the summer camps provide a great opportunity for kids to learn coding, develop teamwork and problem solving skills, inspire creativity and have fun.

"We will be running some of our most popular activities including programming with Cozmo, Makey Makey and Little Bits," Dr Fituri said.

The programs teach coding and computational thinking, and foster creativity, innovation, teamwork and problem solving. In the Cozmo program, campers will be exposed to robotics and will learn how to program Cozmo to explore, make decisions, complete tasks and create basic artificial intelligence (AI) behaviors. In the Makey Makey program, children will create their own physically interactive games using the Scratch programming language and the Makey Makey micro controller. The Little Bits program involves using electronic components to create interactive prototypes.

QCRI urges people to register soon as places fill quickly. For more details and to register, please visit QCRI website.