– By BENJAMIN PIMENTEL
MarketWatch
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SAN FRANCISCO – What do Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, will.i.am and Chris Bosh have in common?
They all want children to get excited about coding and making software programs.
They’re featured in a six-minute video from Code.org, a nonprofit foundation pushing to expand computer programming education in the United States.
The video kicks off with text quoting the late Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs, who said, “Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer … because it teaches you how to think.”
This is followed by video clips from Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp.; Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Inc.; and other celebrities of the tech industry and social media, extolling the wonderful world of coding.
They’re not all techies and geeks.
There’s basketball superstar Bosh of the Miami Heat, who tells the story of why, as a kid, he got into computers — even though it wasn’t cool.
“I was in an after-school group called ‘The Whiz Kids,’ and when people found out, they laughed at me,” he says. “And I’m like, ‘Man, you know, I don’t care. I’m learning a lot.’ “
Code.org is making this push because, as text explains as the video ends, “One million of the best jobs in America may go unfulfilled because only 1 in 10 schools teach students to code.”
The “cool factor” may be a problem.
But musician will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, who is taking coding classes, says, “Great coders are today’s rock stars.”
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