Celebrating 20 Years of Computer Science for Fun
On Tuesday 06th June 2025, the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science celebrated the 20th anniversary of the world leading public engagement project, Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN) launched in 2005 by Paul Curzon and Peter McOwan, currently funded by EPSRC.
During the celebration, Professor Paul Curzon gave a public talk on “The Illusion of Good Software Design”. Afterwards, Hamit Soyel CTO of spin-out company DragonflyAI (which arose from the team’s public engagement work) demonstrated their AI vision software, and Paul and Daniel Gill demonstrated computer science magic.
At CS4FN, our mission is to spark excitement about interdisciplinary computer science research—and we’ve been supporting both groundbreaking research projects and schools since day one. Over the years, CS4FN has received multiple awards for its impact, including a prestigious international honour for helping to “contribute to the rebirth of Computer Science as a school subject.”
For two decades, our small team has delivered talks and workshops to tens of thousands of students, from primary to secondary level. We've covered many topics such as women in computing, artificial intelligence, computational thinking and a popular workshop introducing research topics through magic tricks. We have also given talks on computer science pedagogy to thousands of teachers based on our research.
Our computer science blog is read around the globe, and our novel educational resources are used worldwide. We've distributed around 700,000 free copies of our magazines to subscribing UK schools, while our TeachingLondonComputing website has drawn millions of views from over a million visitors.
Beyond promoting research, we've helped drive a surge in university applications for computer science and played a role in reshaping national education policy. Our work contributed to the inclusion of computer science in the school curriculum and to the establishment of the National Centre for Computing Education, which supports teachers nationwide.
From the outset, we’ve championed diversity in computing—celebrating and supporting women, LGBTQ+ communities, people with disabilities, neurodivergent individuals, and ethnic minorities through initiatives like our Black History Month campaigns.
And the students we’ve reached? They say it best:
“Not just thinking out of the box – tearing it up.” – Secondary student
“The best day at school ever!!! P.S. SUPER COOL!!!” – Primary student
Computer Science is for all!
For more on the project visit the CS4FN Teaching London Computing Website: https://cs4fn.blog and https://teachinglondoncomputing.org