After tallying the thousands of likes on Instagram Contest entries received from across Asia Pacific, three grand prize winners have been selected from ten finalists. Photos were submitted from across the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

What were the most interesting places to code? From coding outdoors, using multiple screens simultaneously to coding in the toilet, we received photos of young people coding in funny, crazy and beautiful places.

Dian Anggraini (@anggeyanggraini), one of the three grand prize winners (who each received a Nokia Lumia 1020 mobile phone), said, “For me, coding is something which can never get boring because I am always learning about something new. I like the feeling that I get when I accomplish something new and difficult. I always try to find something just out of my skill range and then learn how to do it!”

Ecstatic grand prize winner, Adriani Sarastasya Zenitha (@aszenitha), enthused, “I'm so happy! I didn't really expect to win. I've always wanted a Nokia Lumia since the 920 came out, and now I got the Lumia 1020 from this contest. So, yeah! I'm totally excited!”

“Coding is the way we make cool and useful stuff,” declared longtime coder and the contest’s third grand prize winner, M. Warizmi Wafiq (@mwarizmiwafiq). “I think coding is one of the most important lessons. You learn to solve problems, do things efficiently. I always imagined to do great things with the computer, so I taught myself coding since junior high school. I built my own blog to look different with my friend when I was in senior high school. And, right now, I am developing some apps with my team, especially related to GIS and disaster mitigation.”

Click on the names below to take a look at the Instagram photos submitted by the rest of our top ten entries who each received a Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse and a limited edition #WeSpeakCode t-shirt and sweatband.

Bintang Thunder Rolintua Lumban Gaol (@bintangthunder)
Ema Latersia (@emalaters)
Leo Pripos Marbun (@leopripos)
Issaret Prachitmutita (@imacmonochrome)
Grace Yanni Sibarani (@gezzyanni)
Zanna Sukses Simarmata (@zannasukses)
Kartika Sari Sitorus (@kartikatorus)

Thanks to all of our winners for your enthusiasm and participation!
Continue to follow coding activities in Asia at our WeSpeakCode Facebook page.

To celebrate coding and programmers, we are highlighting YouthSpark stars in Asia Pacific who have learned to code and have found success in school, competitions and career by understanding this language. We hope their stories will inspire you. What are you waiting for? Learn to speak Code now. #WeSpeakCode.

Name: Melick Rajee Baranasooriya
Country: Sri Lanka
Occupation: Tech Lead at Pyxle Pte Limited

Bio:
With two IT degrees under his belt and extensive capabilities in development and consultation for Microsoft related technologies, Melick’s technological prowess is beyond doubt. But it’s his passion and drive in sharing important insight with fellow professionals and learners that sets him apart. Dedicated to creating value in the Sri Lankan IT scene, Melick regularly conducts sharing sessions and workshops and his efforts have earned him the title of Most Valuable Professional in Leadership Technology.

Can you tell us about your experience in learning to code – when did you become serious in programming and did you learn it by yourself?
I started my programming career as a freelancer for VB6 development in 2002. Still a student then, I underwent coding tutorials frequently to hone my craft in my free time. I referred to many books as well, and even started creating programmes to solve hypothetical problems in case studies that I generated on my own.

Which areas of coding have you worked on the most? Can you give a specific program of coding that you used to tackle a problem?
I once designed a Sinhala Unicode Based solution [MRB1] for Sinhala Dictionary Centre’s Information Management System, which, at the time, was incapable of efficiently processing the huge amount of translations and word reviews for the dictionary.

Combining C# and SQL technology, the solution that I wrote made processes more efficient – the system is now fit to handle the entire process of creating a dictionary, from word approvals to the organisation of lexicons and subs.

Tell us about something interesting that you have been doing for the past 3-6 months.
For the past three months, I’ve introduced SharePoint applications to students in the University of Kelaniya, conducted a session on building web-based applications for the Sri Lankan Air Force and advised people on the management of multi-lingual content in SharePoint at SharePoint Forums.

Aside from these activities, I’ve also been actively conducting workshops in rural areas of Sri Lanka to improve technological literacy.

How did the idea of sharing with rural communities come about, and what kind of programme did you teach them exactly?
When I served as the vice-president in my university’s computer society, my team and I organised a series of workshops and seminars targeted at schools in rural areas. We were determined to address the unequal spread of IT literacy in Sri Lanka, so we visited the South, North and Central provinces to conduct workshops and activities. We felt a more pressing need to share our computing knowledge instead of just providing hardware, because without basic computing skills, even the latest devices and hardware will be underutilised.

One of our beneficiaries was Nihiluwa Maha Vidyalaya, a public school situated in the southern district of Hambantota. Despite a strong emphasis on ICT education, the school still faced a shortage of well-trained teachers. Hence, over a period of five days, we conducted workshops and programmes on establishing internal networks, shared our expertise with teachers and even implemented a File Share server to facilitate sharing of online content and materials.

The YouthSpark WeSpeakCode campaign aims to encourage young people to learn code. If you were to speak to the younger generation, what kind of advice would you give them (on coding)? Would there be a specific area of code that you would strongly encourage them to learn?
For beginners, my advice is not to copy source codes from the Internet. Copy and pasting may seem like the easy way out, but it doesn’t help you learn. You can refer to them, but remember to write your own coding lines. You’ll remember it much better than just copying from the source code.

Coders should definitely master one language first before thinking about picking up another; don’t learn multiple languages at once.

I’m inspired by… Sharing my knowledge among the community and specialising in what I do.

According to an English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) study conducted on 60 countries and territories where English is not the mother tongue, Thailand’s English proficiency hit near-bottom, landing in the 56^th spot. Despite the government’s increasing emphasis on mastering English, the country is still facing an uphill task in doing so, particularly in areas where students pick up English only as a third or fourth language.

Khadiyah Amanakun, an English teacher in Betong, Yala, may have found the perfect answer to this: technology in the classroom. After she designed her own English-learning programme “5 Steps to Mastering English Public Speaking” project, her school’s English scores for entrance exams improved, and one of her students even clinched fourth place in a national English speech contest.

For her achievements, Khadiyah was the only ‘expert educator’ that Microsoft selected from Thailand in 2014, and joined more than 250 expert educators in Barcelona, Spain, at the 2014 Microsoft in Education Global Forum. The forum, held from 11 to 14 March, gathered educators, government officials and other education leaders from around the world for talks on hot topics such as skills needed for current and future jobs and innovative uses for learning technologies.


“I feel very humbled and excited to be able to represent Thailand,” Kadiyah said. “It has been a long journey from the first Microsoft Partners in Learning (PiL) programme that I attended five years ago. This time, it was just as enriching. The greatest highlights for me were swapping ideas on pedagogies and technologies with the other educators from around the world and designing learning activities for the Learn-a-Thon session.” The Learn-a-Thon activity, a first for the conference, required the educators to team up to design classroom lessons that used innovative technologies to teach about the Millennium Development Goals.

She summed up her thoughts on the forum, saying, “We have to embrace technologies that inculcate a higher level of creative thinking, self-learning and communication skills. These are tools that will prepare our children for the challenges of the 21^st century.”

Tools Khadiyah used to improve instruction and learning outcomes

• Songsmith: She uses Songsmith to create tunes for students to practise, sing-along and learn new vocabulary.
• Speak Cell: To help students learn native pronunciation of English words in read-along exercises, Khadiyah uses this Microsoft Excel function.
• Flip Album: Her students are able to take notes more quickly with this e-book creation programme.
• Marvelkids.com: Khadiyah’s students get to turn their written essays and short stories into comics using this automated platform.

Khadiyah plans to introduce Kodu Game Lab, which she’d learnt about at the forum, into her curriculum. “It will allow students to learn English while creating their own game,” she explained. “And since it teaches basic programming skills, it will serve to test the children’s logical and critical thinking skills, too.”