The LightCode Platform aims to provide a user-friendly low-code development environment for creating application software, using a graphical user interface instead of traditional manual programming with code development. Essentially, the LightCode Platform will include a family of tools that enables the development and delivery of complete applications visually through modeling and a drag-and-drop interface, and thus the user skips hand-coding, speeding up the process of getting an application to production. The ultimate goal of this work package is to provide an easy-to-use and free-of-charge application development environment, using the low-code and no-code approach. 

In a nutshell, the LightCode Platform will embed an environment for visually defining the user interfaces, workflows, and data models of an application, while it will automatically handle data structures, storage, and retrieval. Thus, it will include automated tools for building, debugging, deploying, and maintaining the application in test, staging, and production. Students will not need to write the code line by line, as the platform will allow them to draw a flowchart and the code will be generated. Rather than writing thousands of lines of complex code and syntax, they will use low-code to build complete applications with modern user interfaces, integrations, data, and logic quickly and visually. Applications are delivered faster and with no or minimal hand-coding. Finally, the LightCode platform will be free of charge and available to the partner universities, but through dissemination, it will be easy for students and faculty from other universities to use it, as there will be no restriction on its use.

Consequently, the LightCode Platform will complete the project’s effort to strengthen inclusion and digital skills in higher education, as it will be offered to both students and faculty members, in an inclusive and open-access way, to anyone interested in learning about the potential of low-code, through the project’s educational material.