A few weeks ago, I woke up with an idea: a mini summer school for the kids in rural areas.

My name is Monica Vlad, and I spend my summer at my country/holiday house in the village of Lunca, Puiesti commune (BZ) during the summer months of July, August and September. When I am not living in Lunca, I am in Linz, Austria, where I study and work as a teaching assistant at Johannes Kepler University, in the Department of Mathematics for Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, I have been working for four years as a computer science instructor for women in Upper Austria. The computer science I teach is at a beginner's level, which can easily be taught to children. In fact, computer programming is taught here in Austria from kindergarten onwards, and it is already a compulsory subject from the first grade onwards at school.

The summer education programme for children in the commune of Puiesti (villages of Lunca, Macrina, Puiesti, Nicolesti, etc.) includes only basic programming courses lasting two hours, with the location being the school in Macrina, to which I have already been given access by the town hall. The courses are held twice a week, 2 hours a day, from 9:00 to 11:00. If more children are interested in these courses, they can be held 3 times a week. The days are at the beginning of the week: Monday and Tuesday (+ Wednesday if necessary and if there is demand).

Initially, I thought that the participants would be divided into groups of 10, but this number may vary depending on how many children there are in the community, and especially how many would like to attend these summer courses. If there are many children interested, I can divide them into age groups.

The courses I would like to offer are completely free, not difficult and extremely exciting for children. Being a programming course, I would of course need laptops, microcontrollers and robots.

I have already been offered 10 laptops for free, but I would need funding to purchase the robots. The total cost for purchasing them is 1500 euros. In this amount, my teaching fee is not included, because that is zero, meaning I will do it for free.

Asking for European funding for rural education is already too late. Therefore I have to find other solutions for acquiring the robots. I know it's a bit sudden, but I will try anyway, why not?!

I have briefly described my project idea. I think it is a very good opportunity for the children in the commune of Puiesti, which contains more villages. I will be there in the summer, so why not help them with a little professional education in programming, which is so necessary for the future?

I would like to start the courses on 14 July 2025 until 9 September 2025, attending twice a week (or more if there's demand).

Best regards,

Monica.

P.S. I cannot edit the project location to Romania, as it does not exist in the list this website provides. Therefore, I had to choose my current location in Austria, but please keep in mind the project is for Romania. Thank you!