This past week we ran week 5 of our digital art competition. We had 10 entrants and gave out $420 to the top 3 students. We also have new links to look at the work:

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1st place, Samantha: Art Link ($210)

2nd place, Dev: Art Link ($140)

3rd place, Maddon: Art Link ($70)

To find out what's so special about these projects, click the:

button multiple times from the explore link and see how the project changes.

We are going to offer these prizes every week. And - the prize money is going to go up. Starting next week, we'll offer $480 in weekly prize money: $240 for first place, $160 for 2nd place and $80 for 3rd place.

The new (and latest) information for our contests is at:

hatchcoding.com/contests

It's now official! We are running FOUR (4) $10,000 projects in January 2022 including ONE Girls Only contest (likely January 19). The submission deadlines for these contests will be Wednesday January 5, 12, 19 and 26 at 8 pm Eastern.

I think there is a lot of value in recognizing youth talent: Cultivating these skills today in teens and pre-teens means that 10-15 years from now, there are going to be a group of young adults who have had a decade or more to really refine their abilities and process. The world is changing so fast right now, with new technologies being created and new jobs being developed. I think the only way to have our society get ahead of all the infrastructure changes is to have the people who are going to contribute to this economy 20 years from now start their innovation journey today.

This whole thing is a giant experiment, but I think it could really generate some interesting results: What if we create strong incentives today to have teens and pre-teens start building tech skills early, and to build them in a way that empowers them as builders and creators.

It's one thing if we offer more coding classes in school, or integrate STEM education into existing classes. It's definitely a step forward if more camps and after school classes are offered to power and empower kids & teens. But what if we, as a society, and as a community of thought leaders, put our money where our mouth is and said:

Yes, we want young people today to have way stronger incentives to build and strengthen skills that will help them tomorrow? What if we put our money where our mouth is, and said not only "coding is good, tech is good, STEM is good" but also backed it up with large economic incentives for kids to dive into this world?

More details are coming soon but I know one thing for sure:

We're just getting started!

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Peter, CEO, Hatch Coding