"Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer...
because it teaches you how to think." - Steve Jobs
What do you want to be when you grow up? Um... an astronaut.
I want to be a fashion designer. A basketball player. I want to be an actor. A doctor. A
teacher. A chef. An artist. What do you wanna be when you grow up? A mermaid!
(interviewer) Do you know what a computer programmer is? (student) Yeah--umm... no. No. Uhh, no.
I think it's something that has code and it's able to decode a mystery. I think that they...
umm, wait what? (interviewer) Computer programmer? (student) No.
Nowadays, just about everything requires some form of programming. So what is it?
Programming is basically explaining to a computer what you want it to do for you. When you're programming, you're teaching possibly
the stupidest thing in the universe, a computer, how to do something. Programming is one of
the only things in the world that you can do where you can sit down and just make something
completely new from scratch-whatever you want. It's really not unlike playing an instrument
or playing a sport. It starts out being very intimidating, but you kind of get the hang
of it over time. Coding is something that can be learned and I know it can be intimidating,
and a lot of things are intimidating, but what isn't? A lot of the coding people do
is actually fairly simple. It's more about the process of breaking down problems than
coming up with complicated algorithms as people traditionally think about it. Well if it's
fairly simple, why aren't there more of us doing it? Over the next 10 years there will
be 1.4 million jobs in computer science and only about 400,000 grads qualify for those
jobs. That's a shortage of a million people! So how do you start?
I was obsessed with maps when I was a kid, and cities specifically, so I taught myself how to program. I had a
very clear goal of what I wanted to do which was to see a map of the city on my screen
and play with it. Put things on the map, move things around the map, see what was happening
in the city. How it worked, how it lived, how it breathed. The best early thing was
actually using software to decide when the classes in my school would meet. And that
put me in a position to decide which girls were in my class.
The first program I wrote asked things like, "What's your favorite color?" or "How old are you?" I first learned how
to make a green circle and a red square appear on the screen. The first time I actually had
something come up and say "Hello world!" I made a computer do that? It was astonishing.
When I finally learned a little bit of programming, that blank wall resolved into a bunch of doors.
And you open them and finally you start to open enough doors that the light comes in.
And to me, a finished program is like a structure filled with light. All the corners are illuminated
and you understand the structure of it. It's a really serene feeling to have completed that.
It took me some time to realize that creating things with your hands or creating
code, creating programs is just a different way to express creativity. I think right now
there's a big emergence of the culture of making. People who make their own scarves
and hats, people who write their own apps. Now it's just limited by your imagination.
And sort of what kinds of ideas, what kind of understanding can you build into a computer
to do these things that were previously impossible.
All great things are built in teams when you
collaborate with other smart people. You're testing your ideas, you're stimulating each
other, that's what makes us successful. It's not some flash of brilliance from somebody
who codes 24 hours a day for 3 weeks. The magic happens when we're all on the same page
collaborating and building something together. There's a much greater need in the world for
engineers and people who can write code than there will ever be supply. And so we all live
these very charmed lives. To get the very best people we try to make the office as awesome as possible.
We have a fantastic chef. Free food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Free laundry.
Snacks. Even places to play and video games and scooters. There's all these kind of interesting
things around the office.
Places where people can play or relax, or go to think, or play music, or be creative.
I went on the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the United States
and there's about a third of the pie that's all the things that you would expect. They're
working for the government, they're working in typical technology jobs, but then the rest
of the pie--the majority of the pie--just split down into these little tiny slices of
every industry imaginable. And what it is, is computers are everywhere! Do you want to
work in agriculture? Do you want to work in entertainment? Do you want to work in manufacturing?
It's just all over.
Here we are, 2013, and we all depend on technology to communicate,
to bank. Information. And none of us know how to read and write code.
So you guys, what else? Who else has an idea of what we can change with our program?
What else can we do?
What I saw my students take away from using Scratch and programming in our classroom
is that they're willing to push through problems. It really builds critical thinking. It builds
problem solving. And it's something that they can then apply to math in the classroom. Or
their reading skills. We integrated science with this programming and I saw my scores
go up 30%. When I was in school I was in this after school club called the Whiz Kids and
when people found out they laughed at me. You know all these things. And I'm like, man
I don't care. I think it's cool. You know I'm learning a lot and some of my friends
have jobs. It's important for these kids. It should be mandatory. To be a citizen on
this planet, to read and write code.
I just think you have to start small. That's one of the biggest misconceptions about
computer science and programming overall is that you
have to learn this big body of information before you can do anything. You don't have
to be a genius to know how to code. You need to be determined. Addition, subtraction, that's
about it. You should probably know your multiplication tables. You don't have to be a genius to code.
Do you have to be a genius to read? Do you have to be a genius to do math? No. I think
if someone had told me that software is really about humanity. That it's really about helping
people by using computer technology, it would have changed my outlook a lot earlier. Whether
you're trying to make a lot of money or whether you just want to change the world, computer
programming is an incredibly empowering skill to learn. To be able to actually come up with
an idea and then see it in your hands and then press a button and have it be in millions
of people's hands, I think we're the first generation in the world that's really had
that kind of experience. The programmers of tomorrow are the wizards of the future. You're
going to look like you have magic powers compared to everybody else. I think it's amazing. I
think it's the closest thing we have to a superpower. Great coders are today's rockstars.
That's it.
To start learning a superpower go to Code.org.