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If you want adults to learn to code, stop serving pizza.

That's just one of the lessons Kathryn Parsons, cofounder and co-CEO of global coding education provider Decoded, learned while helping people make the leap into programming. 

Not everyone will learn to code as an obsessed teenager in their bedroom. Some will need to learn digital skills as part of a change mid-career, while others may be managers fed up with not knowing what their developers do all day.

Speaking with Mashable Australia at the CeBIT technology conference in Sydney Monday, Parsons shared some of the tactics her company, which famously claims to teach coding in one day, uses to help people overcome their fears and get started with digital skills.

1. Put a human face on it

The media have made Sergey Brin and the rest of the current Silicon Valley founder crop into demi-gods, so it's no wonder coding seems imposing to outsiders. To help people begin the learning process, it's important to pull back the curtains and make it clear the Internet was created by humans, Parsons said. 

If you want to put coding on a human level, she suggested starting by answering these questions for students: "Who are the human beings who created this stuff? What does code actually look like? How can I use [code], contribute, collaborate, and become part of the community of the web?"

2. Build a community

At Decoded, learning to code is always a team activity. 

"It's not a lonely place," she said. "The smallest groups we do it with are 10 people. The largest group we've ever taught in one experience was 5,000 people. Talk about communal coding."

If people feel there is a world of coders and coding they can join, it might feel more welcoming. "There is this global community of coders, this open source community, collaborating and creating together," she said. "That's a really profound thing for a lot of people, because they just don't work in environments like that."

3. Make learning creative

While online learning has promise, it still suffers from incredibly high churn rates, Parsons said, with many dropping out halfway through the teaching process.

Students might find it easier to stick with coding if they think of it as a creative skill set. They should ask themselves, "How can I use the languages of the web to create the ideas that I've had in my head?" Parson said. "Creating and crafting those ideas without the tools? You can't do it."

"How can I use the languages of the web to create the ideas that I've had in my head?" 

That idea has informed the company's approach to teaching, added Chris Monk, Decoded's head in the Asia-Pacific. "We don't start with 'this is a variable and this is how it works.' We say, 'we're going to build an app.' We start with that creativity and then go on a journey, and I think that's the key to learning," he said.

"It's a mindset, Parsons added. "Convincing people that it's relevant, that it's something creative, that it's something anyone can do."

4. Don't teach, guide

Parsons said she aims to have Decoded's class facilitators act as guides rather than strict teachers.

The idea of guidance plays out in how they interact with students. "They never lean over anyone to correct their code," she explained. "That's incredibly disempowering."

Rather, students are encouraged to focus on problem solving. "It's kneeling down next to somebody, and not saying 'you're missing a semicolon on line 27' and just sticking it in," Monk added. "It's saying 'let's look again at that bit of code that's between line 24 to 30, and see if you can spot what's in there.'"

5. Think about the space. And the snacks

Decoded considers the physical environment important in the learning experience. "Generally, the space will be incredibly large," Parson said. "A real feeling of space and light. Why do we teach people in little dingy rooms?"

All the food is brainfood. "Coder food. Not pizza," she said. It could be lentils or a vegan lunch, but the aim is to keep your mind ticking over.

Best of all? "No quiche," Monk said, referring to the dull pastry that has been served at every tech event ever.

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Ever since Facebook was a mere twinkle in Mark Zuckberg's eye, all-white, all-male panels at startup conferences have been the deplorable status quo.

On Monday morning, Alan Jones, startup evangelist at the Sydney accelerator BlueChilli, was set to speak on a fintech panel at the CeBIT technology conference in Sydney. That was until he checked out his co-panellists. Their blinding similarity — old, male, white — was dismaying, so he put out the call on Twitter to find himself a more diverse replacement.

Speaking with Mashable Australia before the panel, Jones, who hadn't yet found a stand-in, said the situation was very familiar and very disappointing.

As an experienced tech conference panelist, he explained his theory about how on earth this can keep happening. "Underlying everything, when you are putting together a conference, your primary focus is your keynote," he said. "Usually, you're trying as hard as you can to secure some big names from overseas. That's the primary goal. Diversity sits well down the list of goals."

In the hierarchy of how large technology conferences are structured, he suggested panels were the lowest rung for organisers. "You put panels on to include stakeholders — they may be sponsors or have a big booth at the event. Then you've probably got some vacant seats, so that's when you turn to me," he laughed.

Supporting diversity in technology plays a part in his agenda at BlueChilli, Jones said. Nevertheless, he decides how to deal with all-white, all-males panels on a case-by-case basis. "I would have done a bit better with this one if I had looked at the panel before this morning," he explained. "Usually I look earlier and send some emails." 

As a representative of BlueChilli, however, he said he's not in a position to give up his seat entirely. "My only way of marketing BlueChilli is through non-cash means, so we need to be on those panels," he explained. "I just know how many successful, powerful women deserve that voice."

Ultimately, no woman replaced Jones on the panel. He still managed to bring the issue up, however, throwing his opportunity to answer the moderator's first few questions to any woman in the audience who wished to speak. 

Unfortunately, there were about five women in the room available to take up his offer out of around 30 attendees. Louise Long, head of human-centred design at NABLabs at the National Australia Bank, who was chairing the afternoon's fintech talks, thanked Jones for bringing up the elephant in the room.

The organisers of CeBIT have been contacted for comment.

The endemic lack of speaker diversity at conferences has been back in the news lately, with five of Australia's most popular male conference speakers declaring they would boycott panels that did not include women, according to Fairfax Media.

The five, including Adam Fraser, Jason Fox, Dan Gregory, Matt Church and Darren Hill, who have expertise that ranges from motivational speaking to business advice, told the publication they will no longer participate in or moderate panels that don't ensure better representation.

"There are plenty of women who are experts in their field and highly talented speakers," Gregory said "And, to steal a line from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 'it's 2016'. The thing is, research tells us diversity makes groups smarter, so why are we dumbing panels down?"

As for Jones, he's going to keep bringing the issue up, whether it makes for an awkward panel discussion or not. "I'm sad that I'm now becoming an old white man, but I'm not going to stand by and let it happen," he laughed.

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