At COP26 by Lowena Hull

Lowena at COP26. PHOTO: Twitter@edent/Twitter@ramcq

> FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY AT COP26

LOWENA HULL

Lowena Hull is a Second-Year student of Natural Sciences (Physical) with a passion to educate young people on how they can engage in saving their environment, our planet and how to live responsibly.

I was invited to COP26 by a company called OpenUK which focuses on open source technology. Throughout the last year, I have been Creative Director for this year’s OpenUK Kid’s Camp, a series of ten short video lessons aiming to enhance the programming skills and awareness of the open-source of kids aged 13-15. Each lesson focuses on one of the ten points of the Open Source Definition (OSD) and includes a short coding project to follow. Particular lessons introduce companies with significant involvements to the open-source community and look at how the UN sustainability goals can be addressed with technology.

This year we have distributed 5,000 kits across the UK to digitally excluded groups, an increase from 3000 the year before and we are grateful to our current sponsors, the largest of which is Red Hat. Each kit consists of a pre-sewn glove, a speaker and three leads. For students who are unable to get access to a microbit [Editor: a pocket-sized programmable computer that introduces a user to how software and hardware work together] through their school or local library, we also have kits which include a microbit. My primary objective at COP26 was to promote the course offered by OpenUK and its benefits in order to secure additional funding as we ran out of the kits very fast, and currently have a waiting list for when more kits become available. As part of this initiative, I was a panellist talking about my work in open source and the importance of collaboration between open source and the UN sustainability goals. I also attended the OpenUK Awards evening as a finalist for the Young Person Award for the under 25 age group, recognised for extraordinary contributions to open source.

I found attending and actively participating in COP26 activities a useful opportunity not only to meet those with the means and drive to make a difference to the younger generations, but to gain insights into how others perceive the future of open source to aid the fight against climate change. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of tartan kilts and bagpipes, and I very much enjoyed my bonus trip to the oldest whiskey distillery in Scotland.

For those interested in the course you can find out more here: https://openuk.uk/openkidscamp/.

Lowena Hull