Now a growing realisation among educators that this gap needs to be filled is prompting a new revolution, in the belief that teaching children how to code will give them a skill for life.

At Oracle Code 4 Kids, attendees tried sessions on programming Finch and Lego Mindstorm robots, coding games and websites with Python, JavaScript and HTML5, and learning the Java programming language.

As for how to use it? The kids get to decide. Using a space-themed app, kids write if-then rules, learning the syntax of basic coding. An example: if you drop a ball, then it turns red.