Part of RISE
Codzilla
IT training centre for kids
Seven years of teaching children to make things with a computer, now carried on inside the foundation. Ages 5 to 17, taught online, in groups of four to eight.
- 5–17
- 4–8
- 10
- 7
For most children, the computer is a toy first
A phone or a laptop reaches a child long before anyone explains what sits behind the screen. It entertains them, and it stops there. The child never finds out that the thing in their hands is also something they could build with.
Codzilla began from a simple thought: a child who wants to learn to program should not have to wait for university, and an Armenian family should not have to live in a capital city to find a teacher.
Why it matters
Confidence is built early
When a child writes their first working program and watches it run, they learn something about themselves that no school grade tells them.
It is a way of thinking
Logic, mathematics and chess stand next to programming here for a reason: the habit of breaking a problem into steps is the part that lasts.
Distance stops deciding
The classes are online, so a child in a village in Armenia and a child in an Armenian family abroad sit in the same small group.
How a course runs
Nothing here needs a special room or a drive across the city. It needs a computer, an internet connection, and a time in the week that belongs to the child.
- Taught online
- Classes are held online, so a family joins from home, wherever home happens to be.
- Groups of four to eight
- Small enough that the teacher knows every child and notices the one who has gone quiet.
- Ages 5 to 17
- The youngest begin without typing a single line of code; the oldest write real programs.
- Every level
- No prior experience is needed. A child joins at the level they are at and moves on when they are ready.
Ten programmes
What a child actually does
A child starts with the programme that fits their age and their curiosity, and can move to another one later.
- 01
Computer science
How a computer actually thinks: instructions, memory, and why the order of things matters.
- 02
Digital literacy
Using a computer safely and confidently: files, search, the keyboard, and what not to click.
- 03
Logic
Puzzles with one right answer and several ways of getting to it.
- 04
Scratch
Blocks clicked together until a character moves, then until it is a game someone else can play.
- 05
Web development
A first page, written in the same languages the real web is written in.
- 06
AI literacy
What these tools are, what they are good at, and where they are confidently wrong.
- 07
Mathematics
The arithmetic and the reasoning that programming keeps asking for.
- 08
Chess
Planning several moves ahead, and living with the consequences of the move you chose.
- 09
English
The language most of programming is written in, learned as a working tool.
- 10
Summer school
A shorter, denser stretch of teaching for when school is out.
What the years add up to
Codzilla was teaching children long before it joined the foundation. This is the record those years left.
- 600+
- graduates
- 7
- years of teaching
- 7
- countries reached
Where the families are
- Armenia
- United States
- Canada
- France
- Germany
- Switzerland
- Russia
Codzilla ran for years as an independent IT training centre for children. It is now part of RISE, and its programmes are delivered under the foundation.
Who can join
- Any child between 5 and 17 years old.
- Any level, beginners included — no prior experience is required.
- Any family with a computer and an internet connection, in Armenia or abroad.
If your child is curious about how the things they use are made, that is enough to start with.
Films
Where the name came from, and the day the doors opened.
codzilla.am
See the courses and register
Codzilla keeps its own site. The current list of courses, and registration, are there.