0 - 25,000 people! Growing a global community over 10 years
summary
Codebar grows from a single London workshop in 2013 to 27,000 people across ~45 chapters and two virtual hubs, running roughly 2,500 workshops with one-to-one pairing and open‑source tutorials. A custom Ruby website and chapter system enable signups but create maintenance overhead; charity registration in 2020 forces new governance (added lawyer and finance trustee). 150 volunteer organisers run local chapters; broad eligibility boosts reach but blocks many location‑specific grants, so impact reporting and partnerships become core funding strategies.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Introduction
- 3:38What Codebar is
- 5:04Why Codebar started
- 6:57Getting started with bare minimum resources
- 9:29First workshop growth
- 10:15Accidental global scale
- 12:47Challenges and blessings turning into curses
- 15:58Diversity in leadership
- 19:11Being universal everywhere as a double-edged sword
- 21:21Software maintenance pain
- 23:06Sustainability via community
- 26:17Partnerships for growth
- 27:19Measuring impact
- 28:25Reflecting on impact
- 31:17People must always be the priority
- 33:26Empowering organisers
- 34:11Pivoting based on feedback
- 35:17How to join Codebar
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