The tech industry is championing a new initiative to get us all to try programming for an hour. But just how hard is coding, and why should we all be doing it? We speak to four experts
*So what is **the Hour of Code**?*
*Avid Larizadeh*, co-founder of accessories design firm Boticca.com and head of the Hour of Code UK campaign
The Hour of Code is an attempt to teach people the basics of computer programming in 60 minutes in a fun, simple way. It is part of a campaign that Code.org, a non-profit organisation, launched in the US with the goal of introducing coding into the US curriculum and raising awareness around what coding is. The idea was to show that it's not just about the geek in the basement or the super-tech-savvy person but that it actually plays a role in everything we do and everybody should have access to it. And 20 million kids signed up to it.
And I just thought, this is something we should be doing in the UK too. So I spoke to Joanna Shields [the former managing director of Facebook in Europe and now chair of Tech City] and Sherry Coutu [a tech investor] and they were both extremely excited about it. We decided to have it ready for 3 March, which is the 25th anniversary of the launch of the world wide web.
We're not saying we want to build a nation of coders. We're saying, "Just go online and see what it means." The Hour of Code is actually a 60-minute set of tutorials, including one by Mark Zuckerberg and another where you write lines of code to get an Angry Bird to catch a little piggy.
There are a lot of different people behind this. As well as the women that you see here, there is Martha Lane Fox, and Michael Acton Smith from Moshi Monsters. In the States, Will.i.am and President Obama appeared in the launch video. We want to tell boys and girls to just do it. It's easy, just give it a go.
*So, in terms of the makeup of this group of people who've come together this afternoon, you are all women, which is quite atypical, isn't it? Are you deliberately trying to challenge people's perceptions about what computer programmers look like?*
*Avid* Absolutely, we want to demystify what code is about. It's not just geeks. It's cool people, it's women. You don't need to be a computer scientist to actually use code in real life. I run my own fashion accessories business. I run the development team there because I know how to code, and I've been able to build a business online in fashion partly thanks to a coding background.
*Karen Price*, CEO of e-skills UK, the skills council for business and information technology
From September 2014 computing is going to be mandatory on the national curriculum through primary and secondary school. So that is a good thing, but we're trying to seize the moment in challenging negative stereotypes about working in technology. This is the moment to inspire a generation of young people so that kids will be proud to say they're doing it, rather than thinking it's slightly embarrassing.
*How do you find that as a teacher, Nicki? Do you find children are put off by the idea of being a computer geek?*
*Nicki Cooper*, computing teacher at Northfleet School for Girls, Kent, and a Computing at School master teacher
A little bit. I've found working in an all-girls school very different from a mixed school because here the girls are really free to express themselves. They're quite happy that they're into Minecraft or have been building computer games. That's what we've been working on in lessons, and they've been really getting into it. Whereas when I was in a mixed school, the girls took a back seat and it was the boys that would be shouting out and getting enthusiastic. They saw it as a boys' thing.
*What about this idea that everybody needs to learn how to code? Haven't we just gone from one extreme to the other? Before, there was nothing about coding, it wasn't on the political agenda. And suddenly, everybody has to learn how to do it.*
*Kathryn Parsons*, co-founder of Decoded, which teaches individuals and companies how to code
It's been really interesting, all the debate that's been happening around code in the last few weeks. I think it's important to expose children to skills, whether it be mathematics or code or whatever. This is a language that is powering everything that is happening in the world of technology at the moment. And you never know, kids might find they actually have a real talent for it. At the moment, they're not even being exposed to it. That is a huge problem. We hire a lot of programmers and the majority are self-taught.
But to create a more broad male-female ratio and a larger skill set is a necessity. We certainly see it at Decoded.
Why do you have a 19-year-old who wants to set up their own start-up, a mother with kids going back into the workplace after three years and being told she's being left behind, a CEO of a front-seat Fortune 500 company all sitting next to each other at a table learning the same thing? It's because nobody feels empowered or confident about the technologies that go on behind the screen. It shouldn't feel like it's a dark art, something that people are not allowed to learn.
And back on to the gender issue, it's madness, I can't think of anything else in the world where you would say that there is a skill set that is uniquely male.
*What are the actual figures? *
*Karen* Only one in six in the workforce is female at the moment, and that is perpetuated right through: 13% at university; 8% at A-level are female. So, the gender problem is substantial and endemic and getting worse.
*So presumably, Nicki, you studied computer science? What prompted you to buck that trend and be one of the few women who entered the field?*
*Nicki* When I think back to my lecture hall, I was in a minority and us girls stuck together in quite a small group. At my last school it was the same: there'd be 20 boys and one or two girls in every class.
*Karen* I'm an English graduate and I went to work for a tech company, and they thought: "Gosh, we'll teach her to code." So I was taught to code. I did not make my career in programming, but I had a tech career and I think the training I got in technology gave me the knowledge I needed, the confidence I needed and the capability to do my job, which was to solve problems using technology.
*Avid* I love its ability to help you solve problems, or innovate, or create. The UK is globally famous as being one of the most creative hot-beds in the world. Our creative industries are really, really famous. Then you look at the technology, and the ability to have an idea, and there's this huge cavernous gap.
*But then again, there are a lot of people who've been successful in the technology sector who haven't come from a coding background, aren't there? *
*Nicki* I think the days of "I'm just going to let someone else do it, get a digital company to do it" are over, because people are beginning to realise that they've actually relinquished their creativity, research, planning, strategy – everything. And they don't even realise what they're sending off to be done elsewhere. If you want to own the research and the creativity and the innovation in what you do, you do need to understand it.
*So going back to the idea of the Hour of Code… can you learn anything meaningful in an hour? Isn't that a rather banal way of addressing what is a very complex issue?*
*Avid* We're not trying to address the issue of how do we teach code, or how do we need to apply the curriculum – none of that. The Hour of Code is purely saying, give yourself an hour and just try it out. Just see what it is so that you realise that it's not this mystical thing, that it's not super-complicated. Just take that hour, try it out, do it with your children.
*Nicki* I watched a group of girls yesterday in the computing class physically getting excited, bouncing in their seats, making a racket, because they were writing a computer program and they got it to work.
*Is this curriculum change in September going to be a massive thing? Is this going to transform computer science?*
*Nicki* Yes, definitely. It does depend on the skill set of the department because a lot of ICT teachers have come from a non-computing background, so you've got a bit of a divide between those that are really excited about it and those who are finding it quite scary. In a lot of schools, nobody has necessarily said: "Do you need any support with this?"
*So is this one of those great political statements where the government says: "Yes, every child is going to be learning computing from the age of six", but has not worked out who actually is going to teach them?*
*Nicki* It's fantastic that we're doing it and there are tools in place to support teachers. For example, I've just trained to be a Computing in Schools master teacher, which means that I will be able to go out to schools and help train them. But there are a lot of ICT teachers out there who still have that skills gap. It is a worry. There does need to be more support from a government level to fund training.
*There does seem to be a lot of political bandwagon-jumping going on. **When I did Kathryn's Decoded course a couple of years ago**, it was a bit of a crazy idea to go off and learn to code. Now coding is everywhere and all politicians seem to have leaped on board. *
*Nicki* It used to be that if you said, "anyone and everyone can and should learn this" you sounded like a total nutcase. But the whole environment seems to have shifted in the last six months. It does feel like a very exciting time that there are places to go, like Hour of Code and Code.org, and Decoded.
*There seem to be a lot of organisations doing something similar but different. It's quite confusing. When I was researching Hour of Code, it took me a little while to figure out that this wasn't the same as Year of Code, which also launched recently.*
*Kathryn* And, it's also the BBC's Year of Code next year…
*Avid* There is definitely confusion in terms of the messaging. I think we're all trying to work together to make this clearer. The Year of Code is not the BBC Year of Code, it's different. The Year of Code, which was announced last week, is more of a campaign around all the things that are happening.
*Right, and **that drew a lot of criticism, didn't it?** Including criticism that the director of it doesn't know how to code. *
*Kathryn* The thing is 98% of the UK doesn't know how to code. That's the point. And learning should be empowering.
*Avid* And it has to be something that anyone and everyone, whatever age they are, whatever gender they are, feels that they have permission to go and study.
*Karen* I also think code has become the shorthand for talking about things that are much broader than coding. This innate ability that young people have with technology isn't recognised by traditional employers. Most young people know how to organise a party, or get a group of people together around an event on Facebook, and a lot of companies want to use social media to achieve something similar, but they don't connect that with that kind of ability. Many parents are saying: "The world is changing, and I want my child to have the best opportunity to get a good career in this world of technology, and if learning to code gives them a good foundation, then that is what we are going to do."
*Avid, **Boticca.com **is a fashion website, which is about as girly as it gets, but you've come at it from a hard engineering background, haven't you?*
*Avid* I studied engineering and as part of this I did computer science courses. I later got jobs at eBay and Skype, and what I loved about it is that you do something one day and then the next day it's there. You have immediate impact. I love technology but I never thought I could do a job that combined technology and fashion until I started Boticca with my business partner and I realised, I'm a girl, I like being a girl, I like my accessories, I like my fashion. But I thought that was one aspect of my life and the other aspect was being an engineer and working with engineers. But that was not true. One of the reasons my business partner came to me with this idea was because I have the background I have.
*Kathryn* The thing is that everybody is going to have to feel confident and literate about technology in the digital world because it's affecting everybody's lives, everybody's businesses. The products that are powering our lives have been invented and created by the skillsets of men. This is digital history. And women have to be a part of writing it. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
*So what is **the Hour of Code**?*
*Avid Larizadeh*, co-founder of accessories design firm Boticca.com and head of the Hour of Code UK campaign
The Hour of Code is an attempt to teach people the basics of computer programming in 60 minutes in a fun, simple way. It is part of a campaign that Code.org, a non-profit organisation, launched in the US with the goal of introducing coding into the US curriculum and raising awareness around what coding is. The idea was to show that it's not just about the geek in the basement or the super-tech-savvy person but that it actually plays a role in everything we do and everybody should have access to it. And 20 million kids signed up to it.
And I just thought, this is something we should be doing in the UK too. So I spoke to Joanna Shields [the former managing director of Facebook in Europe and now chair of Tech City] and Sherry Coutu [a tech investor] and they were both extremely excited about it. We decided to have it ready for 3 March, which is the 25th anniversary of the launch of the world wide web.
We're not saying we want to build a nation of coders. We're saying, "Just go online and see what it means." The Hour of Code is actually a 60-minute set of tutorials, including one by Mark Zuckerberg and another where you write lines of code to get an Angry Bird to catch a little piggy.
There are a lot of different people behind this. As well as the women that you see here, there is Martha Lane Fox, and Michael Acton Smith from Moshi Monsters. In the States, Will.i.am and President Obama appeared in the launch video. We want to tell boys and girls to just do it. It's easy, just give it a go.
*So, in terms of the makeup of this group of people who've come together this afternoon, you are all women, which is quite atypical, isn't it? Are you deliberately trying to challenge people's perceptions about what computer programmers look like?*
*Avid* Absolutely, we want to demystify what code is about. It's not just geeks. It's cool people, it's women. You don't need to be a computer scientist to actually use code in real life. I run my own fashion accessories business. I run the development team there because I know how to code, and I've been able to build a business online in fashion partly thanks to a coding background.
*Karen Price*, CEO of e-skills UK, the skills council for business and information technology
From September 2014 computing is going to be mandatory on the national curriculum through primary and secondary school. So that is a good thing, but we're trying to seize the moment in challenging negative stereotypes about working in technology. This is the moment to inspire a generation of young people so that kids will be proud to say they're doing it, rather than thinking it's slightly embarrassing.
*How do you find that as a teacher, Nicki? Do you find children are put off by the idea of being a computer geek?*
*Nicki Cooper*, computing teacher at Northfleet School for Girls, Kent, and a Computing at School master teacher
A little bit. I've found working in an all-girls school very different from a mixed school because here the girls are really free to express themselves. They're quite happy that they're into Minecraft or have been building computer games. That's what we've been working on in lessons, and they've been really getting into it. Whereas when I was in a mixed school, the girls took a back seat and it was the boys that would be shouting out and getting enthusiastic. They saw it as a boys' thing.
*What about this idea that everybody needs to learn how to code? Haven't we just gone from one extreme to the other? Before, there was nothing about coding, it wasn't on the political agenda. And suddenly, everybody has to learn how to do it.*
*Kathryn Parsons*, co-founder of Decoded, which teaches individuals and companies how to code
It's been really interesting, all the debate that's been happening around code in the last few weeks. I think it's important to expose children to skills, whether it be mathematics or code or whatever. This is a language that is powering everything that is happening in the world of technology at the moment. And you never know, kids might find they actually have a real talent for it. At the moment, they're not even being exposed to it. That is a huge problem. We hire a lot of programmers and the majority are self-taught.
But to create a more broad male-female ratio and a larger skill set is a necessity. We certainly see it at Decoded.
Why do you have a 19-year-old who wants to set up their own start-up, a mother with kids going back into the workplace after three years and being told she's being left behind, a CEO of a front-seat Fortune 500 company all sitting next to each other at a table learning the same thing? It's because nobody feels empowered or confident about the technologies that go on behind the screen. It shouldn't feel like it's a dark art, something that people are not allowed to learn.
And back on to the gender issue, it's madness, I can't think of anything else in the world where you would say that there is a skill set that is uniquely male.
*What are the actual figures? *
*Karen* Only one in six in the workforce is female at the moment, and that is perpetuated right through: 13% at university; 8% at A-level are female. So, the gender problem is substantial and endemic and getting worse.
*So presumably, Nicki, you studied computer science? What prompted you to buck that trend and be one of the few women who entered the field?*
*Nicki* When I think back to my lecture hall, I was in a minority and us girls stuck together in quite a small group. At my last school it was the same: there'd be 20 boys and one or two girls in every class.
*Karen* I'm an English graduate and I went to work for a tech company, and they thought: "Gosh, we'll teach her to code." So I was taught to code. I did not make my career in programming, but I had a tech career and I think the training I got in technology gave me the knowledge I needed, the confidence I needed and the capability to do my job, which was to solve problems using technology.
*Avid* I love its ability to help you solve problems, or innovate, or create. The UK is globally famous as being one of the most creative hot-beds in the world. Our creative industries are really, really famous. Then you look at the technology, and the ability to have an idea, and there's this huge cavernous gap.
*But then again, there are a lot of people who've been successful in the technology sector who haven't come from a coding background, aren't there? *
*Nicki* I think the days of "I'm just going to let someone else do it, get a digital company to do it" are over, because people are beginning to realise that they've actually relinquished their creativity, research, planning, strategy – everything. And they don't even realise what they're sending off to be done elsewhere. If you want to own the research and the creativity and the innovation in what you do, you do need to understand it.
*So going back to the idea of the Hour of Code… can you learn anything meaningful in an hour? Isn't that a rather banal way of addressing what is a very complex issue?*
*Avid* We're not trying to address the issue of how do we teach code, or how do we need to apply the curriculum – none of that. The Hour of Code is purely saying, give yourself an hour and just try it out. Just see what it is so that you realise that it's not this mystical thing, that it's not super-complicated. Just take that hour, try it out, do it with your children.
*Nicki* I watched a group of girls yesterday in the computing class physically getting excited, bouncing in their seats, making a racket, because they were writing a computer program and they got it to work.
*Is this curriculum change in September going to be a massive thing? Is this going to transform computer science?*
*Nicki* Yes, definitely. It does depend on the skill set of the department because a lot of ICT teachers have come from a non-computing background, so you've got a bit of a divide between those that are really excited about it and those who are finding it quite scary. In a lot of schools, nobody has necessarily said: "Do you need any support with this?"
*So is this one of those great political statements where the government says: "Yes, every child is going to be learning computing from the age of six", but has not worked out who actually is going to teach them?*
*Nicki* It's fantastic that we're doing it and there are tools in place to support teachers. For example, I've just trained to be a Computing in Schools master teacher, which means that I will be able to go out to schools and help train them. But there are a lot of ICT teachers out there who still have that skills gap. It is a worry. There does need to be more support from a government level to fund training.
*There does seem to be a lot of political bandwagon-jumping going on. **When I did Kathryn's Decoded course a couple of years ago**, it was a bit of a crazy idea to go off and learn to code. Now coding is everywhere and all politicians seem to have leaped on board. *
*Nicki* It used to be that if you said, "anyone and everyone can and should learn this" you sounded like a total nutcase. But the whole environment seems to have shifted in the last six months. It does feel like a very exciting time that there are places to go, like Hour of Code and Code.org, and Decoded.
*There seem to be a lot of organisations doing something similar but different. It's quite confusing. When I was researching Hour of Code, it took me a little while to figure out that this wasn't the same as Year of Code, which also launched recently.*
*Kathryn* And, it's also the BBC's Year of Code next year…
*Avid* There is definitely confusion in terms of the messaging. I think we're all trying to work together to make this clearer. The Year of Code is not the BBC Year of Code, it's different. The Year of Code, which was announced last week, is more of a campaign around all the things that are happening.
*Right, and **that drew a lot of criticism, didn't it?** Including criticism that the director of it doesn't know how to code. *
*Kathryn* The thing is 98% of the UK doesn't know how to code. That's the point. And learning should be empowering.
*Avid* And it has to be something that anyone and everyone, whatever age they are, whatever gender they are, feels that they have permission to go and study.
*Karen* I also think code has become the shorthand for talking about things that are much broader than coding. This innate ability that young people have with technology isn't recognised by traditional employers. Most young people know how to organise a party, or get a group of people together around an event on Facebook, and a lot of companies want to use social media to achieve something similar, but they don't connect that with that kind of ability. Many parents are saying: "The world is changing, and I want my child to have the best opportunity to get a good career in this world of technology, and if learning to code gives them a good foundation, then that is what we are going to do."
*Avid, **Boticca.com **is a fashion website, which is about as girly as it gets, but you've come at it from a hard engineering background, haven't you?*
*Avid* I studied engineering and as part of this I did computer science courses. I later got jobs at eBay and Skype, and what I loved about it is that you do something one day and then the next day it's there. You have immediate impact. I love technology but I never thought I could do a job that combined technology and fashion until I started Boticca with my business partner and I realised, I'm a girl, I like being a girl, I like my accessories, I like my fashion. But I thought that was one aspect of my life and the other aspect was being an engineer and working with engineers. But that was not true. One of the reasons my business partner came to me with this idea was because I have the background I have.
*Kathryn* The thing is that everybody is going to have to feel confident and literate about technology in the digital world because it's affecting everybody's lives, everybody's businesses. The products that are powering our lives have been invented and created by the skillsets of men. This is digital history. And women have to be a part of writing it. Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.