obama.png (Photo : http://techcrunch.com/)
United States President Barack Obama became the first president to write a line of code today in the "Hour of Code" by Code.org, a nonprofit organization aiming to encourage people to try and learn computer science.
President Obama used Google's Blockly tool to write a line of Javascript code that draws a square on the screen. The Blockly tool is a free open source online graphical programming editor.
The "Coder-in-Chief" kicked off the program in the White House and was joined with 20 middle school students coming from the South Seventeenth Street School in Newark. The Hour of Code program is the start of the Computer Science Education Week 2014,
The event urges students to learn just one hour of computer programming via their workshop and see whether the field is of the student's interest. It also aims to teach as many people as possible, including students and children, on the basics of programming.
"Don't just consume things, create things. Whether you're a young man trying his hand at programming for the first time or a young woman who's already hard at work on the next big thing, we're counting on you, America's young people, to keep us on the cutting edge," Obama said after taking part in an Hour of Code at the White House.
Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi also said that their endeavors are not "ideals" but "solutions." The website launched the first Hour of Code event on Dec. 9, 2013 during the computer science week and ran until Dec.15, 2013. It is supported by big names in the technology industry, including Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former Microsoft CEO turned philanthropist Bill Gates.
By September 2016, Code.org is planning to bring computer science to around 25,000 classrooms. On its Facebook account, the website describes itself as "a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science."
