According to the European Commission, after 2020 over 90 percent of jobs will require digital skills. Moreover, 65 percent of children entering primary school today will work in jobs that don’t yet exist. To develop their skills for these future occupations, the next generation needs to start preparing as early as possible. Yardi Cluj teamed up with Dalia’s Book, non-governmental organization (NGO), to host Adopt-a-School!, an educational program that teaches coding skills to tomorrow’s programmers, engineers, support specialists and project managers. Yardi Cluj + Adopt-a-School! In 2016, Dalia’s Book set out on an ambitious mission to prepare Romania’s youth for future employment in the tech industry. The organization launched Adopt-a-School!, which pairs schools with local ITC companies like Yardi. In February of 2019, Yardi Cluj employees joined the Adopt-a-School! league of volunteers. About 30 employees offered to host weekly coding sessions at a local high school, teaching coding skills to three fourth grade classes. “I decided to volunteer because all future jobs will require a little bit of coding knowledge,” explained Emil Antoni, real estate market analyst at Yardi. “The easiest being Excel and the most complicated being in the field of DNA. Youth need to be prepared.” “I don’t think it’s essential for children to learn code,” said fellow volunteer Andreea Hosu, technical project leader at Yardi. “But I do believe this is that kind of activity that will open many opportunities in their lives. The children learn basic programming, and the funny thing is that they don’t even realize they’re learning something, because they think they are playing.” Many of the Yardi Cluj volunteers had not worked in education before. They approached the project with a blend of excitement, nervousness, and determination. “This was a first for me, so naturally, I was...