Young Guns: Coding Pals co-founder Kevin Guo balances Ivy League education with entrepreneurship

“Our goal is to provide opportunities for anyone who wants to start learning coding as early as they would like, and hopefully help them build a passion for it earlier on in life,” he says.

Launched at the start of the pandemic, Coding Pals offers weekly coding classes for middle and elementary school students. The Vancouver organization is staffed by 25 student volunteers from all over Canada, and right now Guo himself is running it from New Hampshire while pursuing an undergrad in, you guessed it, computer science at Dartmouth College.

He argues that most kids interested in computer science have to use private tutors. Existing online resources are just too daunting for, say, a fifth-grader to go through by themselves, especially given the initial learning curve that the subject requires you to overcome. By creating this free platform, Guo and his team are able to inspire more kids to explore their interests through interactive coding and programming classes.

That interest is there: more than 100 youths tried to join the first Coding Pals class in 2020. “On Zoom, the regular plan has a 100-person limit, so not everyone who wanted to join could join,” Guo remembers. “That was when we realized just how popular this idea was with people.”

The organization started with just one Python class (and 12 volunteers), but has since scaled to offer seven classes in different languages, spanning a range of topics like Java, web development, math competitions and more, with a mix of introductory and advanced courses. Last summer, Coding Pals collaborated with UBC to host its first in-person web development workshop, which took place over five days.

Admittedly, the pandemic drove much of the venture’s success by making remote learning more popular. Online classes seemed like a better alternative to securing a venue and relying on kids to show up, but virtual sessions came with their own set of problems as well.

After running for a year, Coding Pals classes started getting Zoom-bombed. “Basically, people would post Twitter or Facebook links to the Zoom meetings, and encourage random strangers to join and disrupt them,” Guo explains. At first, the team muted classes to prevent strangers from interrupting, but that removed the element of engagement that Guo wanted to retain. So, he created unique Zoom links for each student in each class, and was able to track the leak and put a stop to it.

As Guo puts it, interaction is important because the nonprofit wants to counteract boring video lectures. It seems to be working—since 2020, the organization has seen over 2,500 students sign up.

7:30 a.m.

While Guo’s parents understand their son’s entrepreneurial drive, they also encourage him to stay on track with school. He wakes up 15 minutes before his 7:45 a.m. class, attends it, and then heads to the gym for an hour or so.

After another class, he completes a few tasks for Coding Pals, like sending emails or making registration forms. When he has time, he tackles some problem sets for college.

Lunch

Once that’s out of the way, Guo hits up the Dartmouth cafeteria. “I’ve been mostly just getting chicken breasts and sweet potatoes,” he says of his recent lunch preferences. “I try to plan out what I’m going to eat every day because everything’s super busy, so it’s easy to miss a meal.”

Since starting Coding Pals, Guo feels like his time management skills have improved. His approach to a healthy work/life balance is to break tasks into chunks and to start as early as possible. That way, he doesn’t overload his commitments, as he’s also involved in extracurriculars like working for the school newspaper and building formula-style cars for a racing club that participates in a competition every year.

7 p.m.

After a soup-or-sandwich dinner, Guo teaches a Coding Pals class when programs are in session (right now, the organization offers fall, winter and summer terms). He also holds weekly team meetings for administrative tasks like assigning classes or training new volunteers.

After the chaos of the day, Guo likes to keep things simple in the evening: “Just spending time with friends, watching a movie or just hanging out in general—those are my favourite ways to unwind.”