Why early access to real tools matters

Software runs on collaboration, and much of that collaboration happens in the open. For newcomers, the barrier to entry isn't just skill—it's access to the same industrial-grade tooling that professionals use. GitHub Education exists to close that gap, offering free access to the GitHub Student Developer Pack and GitHub Copilot so first-time developers can build with current, standard tools from day one.

The numbers suggest it's working. Over the past year, more than 453,000 GitHub Education users made their first contribution to an open project on the platform. They join a path already trodden by 7 million students and teachers who used GitHub when they were starting out.

Hack Club: a network run by teens

GitHub Education has partnered with Hack Club, a global network of technically inclined young people, to get more teenagers contributing to open source. Hack Club connects 39,400 teen hackers worldwide, and its programs are organized by teens themselves—which is precisely why they resonate. The structure is simple: join a club, ship projects, earn rewards, make friends.

The reach is substantial. Hack Club's Summer Arcade brought in 19,000 high school students who shipped 2,000 projects and logged over 135,000 hours of coding, with GitHub providing swag, promotion, and operational funding. More than 400 Hack Clubs exist globally, and the community reports that 40% of in-person event attendees are girls, 30% of the community are girls, and 50% of HCB fiscal sponsorship organizations are female-led.

Hack Club also made an appearance at GitHub Universe, where 18-year-old Acon Lin joined COO Kyle Daigle on stage to launch High Seas, the organization's next campaign. Running from October through January, High Seas is an online challenge where teens sign up, ship projects, and trade them for prizes—a low-pressure entry point for first-time coders to log hours and meet peers.

Why the format works

  1. Self-directed projects: Teens can pursue their own coding, electrical, or mechanical projects. For those unsure where to start, Hack Club's "You Ship, We Ship" challenges provide a nudge.
  2. A global community: With chapters in 22 countries, students can join live AMAs with builders and draw inspiration from peers across time zones.

Proof in the projects

Open source gives young developers a chance to work on real problems and see their code used beyond a classroom assignment. The skills—coding, debugging, collaboration, project management—transfer directly to professional life. A few examples from the Hack Club community illustrate the range:

  • Sam Poder created Hack Club's Summer of Making at age 15. He is now studying Computer Science at Berkeley, crediting the online community he found for changing his trajectory.
  • Zaahir (@zaaahir), 18, from England, wrote a full operating system in C++ with kernel-level networking, designed to replace outdated educational OSes still used in universities. His project won the Hack Club Arcade Showcase 2024, selected from over 2,000 submissions.
  • Lopa (@lopa-ok), 17, from Egypt, built a meta tic-tac-toe variant hosted on GitHub Pages, where players compete across a 3×3 grid of tic-tac-toe boards.
  • Charlie (@crn), 14, from Massachusetts, designed a low-cost UAV from scratch—autopilot code, PCB traces, and model files all open for other students to replicate or fork.

Open source depends on a pipeline of new contributors, and AI tools are only accelerating that cycle. As nearly all developers experiment with AI coding assistants, students who learn in the open today will likely drive the next wave of innovation. For parents or teachers looking to point a teen toward coding, Hack Club is the starting point; donations to support the effort are accepted via the organization's philanthropy page.