It’s been a year since App Dev for All was founded to help bridge the vast digital chasm between global technology haves and have-nots. Founder David Schachter learned from a well-traveled friend that technology courses in developing countries were often taught on blackboards, the contents of which students duly transcribed into paper notebooks.
David was captivated by the idea of empowering students to learn programming while writing, testing, and building actual programs, even if they lack a traditional laptop/desktop computer and high-speed Internet access. And thus he founded App Dev for All.
Our primary goal is to provide professional-grade tools and resources to empower learners who don’t have a traditional computer science education or access to expensive technologies.
In our first year, we have built a small, dedicated team that has achieved the following:
Identified a technology gap: Application programming tools that don’t require a traditional desktop/laptop computer or access to the Internet. We concluded pretty quickly that Android™ phones are an ideal device because they’re widely available around the world and generally keep running long after newer models enter the market.
Experimented with different ways to compile code on Android phones, especially the older models that are our target. (For those of you who aren’t developers, Google’s flagship Android Studio IDE—the premier program for building Android apps—only operates on Microsoft® Windows®, MacOS®, Linux, and ChromeOS, not on Android devices.) Rather than reinvent an existing wheel, we ultimately chose the excellent open-source AndroidIDE as our starting point. (AndroidIDE already supports building apps on Android devices, but doesn’t work without an Internet connection and doesn’t include integrated documentation.) As you may imagine, there are some interesting technical challenges in building an IDE that can run on an older phone.
Identified a documentation gap: We discovered plenty of resources supporting Java, Kotlin, Android, and Gradle, but most of the content requires going online, which many in our target audience can’t reliably do. And, the IDE itself needs clear and comprehensive documentation. Because we want to deliver a well-documented product that supports learners as well as seasoned pros, we’re building multiple tiers of context-sensitive help into Code on the Go and we’re planning to distribute Creative Commons-licensed instructional books about software development.
After a year of hard work, we’re delighted to announce that we’re ready to demo Code on the Go, our open-source IDE that can run on older, less powerful Android phones and doesn’t require Internet access to use its features or access documentation. Everything you need to build an Android app is contained in a single application that compiles new apps without ever needing to go online.
We’re proud of our work so far and excited about working toward our next development milestone: a version of Code on the Go that we can release for public review and testing. At the same time, we’ll start reaching out to potential partners to discuss curriculum development and pilot programs to deliver high-quality developer tools to a globally underserved audience.
If you have questions and comments or if you’re interested in updates, let us know!
