FT Masterclass: Coding with Kathryn Parsons

Decoded, the digital training school, claims it can take a person with zero knowledge of computer programming and teach them how to code in a day - and how to build an app. As if this were not pressure enough, since the company was set up in 2011, none of the 15,000 or so people to have passed through its doors has failed the assignment. Given that I have barely mastered spreadsheets, I arrive at Decoded's east London headquarters concerned that it is about to lose its perfect record.

The offices - in a former interior design showroom - are more akin to a thirtysomething bachelor pad than a classroom, decked out with MacBook Airs, a flatscreen television and a Smeg fridge in Decoded's signature yellow. Kathryn Parsons, CEO and one of the company's four co-founders, bounds in to greet today's pupils. A linguist by training, she has mastered Japanese, Latin, Ancient Greek and Mandarin. For Parsons, programming is just another language that anyone can learn. "'Code' gives you a clue: it's something that is being hidden or designed to confuse," she says. "We set out to condense the world of information into a very short period of time in a way that demystifies, takes away the jargon and in which no one would fail."

Since childhood, Parsons has been playing computer games and reading business books so it seems unsurprising she ended up running a tech company. After university, she joined advertising group Ogilvy & Mather's graduate scheme. It was there that she met one of her Decoded co-founders, Richard Peters. The pair's first venture together was a brand consultancy business, where they created a popular online character, Cherry Girl, for MTV.

When they set up Decoded, coding was still regarded as a niche skill. Parsons recalls having an animated conversation with a Dublin taxi driver about the company. It was only when the 30-minute journey came to an end that she realised there had been a misunderstanding. "He thought we were teaching people how to make coats," she laughs.

Since then, digital skills have risen to the top of the corporate and government agenda. Decoded has trained some 2,000 businesses, from big banks to blue-chip consulting firms, and, last year, the UK became one of the first countries to make coding part of the school curriculum.

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Back in the classroom, my group of six includes people working in advertising and radio, as well as a Facebook employee and a Saudi Arabian businessman. The instructors have talked us through the history of the internet, lightening the technical details with anecdotes. We learn that Grace Hopper, a computer scientist and rear admiral in the US Navy, was inspired to popularise the term "debugging" after removing an actual moth from her computer.

But now it's time to get down to basics: building an app on our laptops. We are told it should be for an event of our choice, where the user needs to be at a specific place in order to "check in" and receive instructions about where to go. I settle on a "Secret Supper Club" involving a "sunset picnic at an unknown location".

The teachers first introduce us to HTML, a language for displaying text and images that is one of the building blocks of web pages and the first of the three main programming languages. While the commands feel unfamiliar, I'm amazed by how logical it is. When the text is entered on the left-hand side of the screen, the way it will look on the app appears on the right. I type in "Secret Supper Club" and a brief description; immediately the text jumps up on the other side of the screen.

The second programming language, CSS, formats the features of text, such as size, colour and shading. Again, it is striking to see the immediate impact of simple commands on the text's style. It is easy to make mistakes - one small typo, such as putting a full stop instead of a comma, means the command doesn't work.

Unlike the early days of computing, when programmers had to either write their own code from scratch or search through physical manuals for it, vast swathes of code are now available on the internet. We are shown how to search GitHub and Stack Overflow - online forums where programmers can share code - for the right pre-made digital commands.

Helping businesses bridge the divide between digitally literate programmers and those who do not understand technology - often a company's leadership - is a big part of Decoded's mission. "Companies are seeing that creativity and innovation are coming from within the technology department," says Parsons. "They need to be able to communicate with them."

Decoded is also keen to promote the work of women, who make up more than half its staff. "There are not enough women setting up companies or in technology," says Parsons. The Silicon Valley image of young men in hoodies eating pizza and coding in a basement is partly to blame, she says. But there is also the insidious idea that female brains are not programmed for technology. "There is a deep inherent sexism in this belief," says Parsons. "One, that's not true. And two, you have to make your brain think that way because that's the way the world is going."

After salad for lunch - Decoded's chefs keep coders sharp by avoiding lethargy-inducing carbs - comes JavaScript. This is a programming language used to create interactive effects. It is the final stage in completing the app and definitely the trickiest. The app user needs to be at a certain geographical co-ordinate in order to check in. It's back and forth to Google and GitHub to find the command for how to do this.

Parsons is evangelical about the digital revolution but recognises that it is divisive. "There are going to be people with and without the skills and people with and without the access to technology," she says. "Technology should be an incredibly democratic tool but the evidence is that it creates huge divisions in society."

At the end of the day, I feel satisfied to have taken my first tentative steps behind the screen. The Secret Supper Club app is saved proudly on my iPhone - written in a language I can now speak, instead of just read.

Harriet Agnew is the FT's City correspondent

Photography: Tom Jamieson

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