Educators, students, and industry leaders in the fields of science and technology convened at the White House today to kick off this year鈥檚 .
At center stage was Seattle-based nonprofit Code.org, a founding partner of Computer Science 91制片厂视频 Week and lead organizer of 鈥�Hour of Code"鈥攁 grassroots movement aimed at introducing computer programming to students worldwide.
About 76,000 classrooms across 180 countries have pledged to participate in Hour of Code this week, joining the 52 million students who have already taken part since last year.
The grassroots effort has become known for its many high-profile endorsements, including , who recently appeared in a new tutorial from the campaign. Among the list of Hour of Code ambassadors are Bill Gates, Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandburg, and actor Ashton Kutcher.
In a video released on Code.org鈥檚 YouTube channel this morning, by telling them that 鈥渂ecoming a computer scientist isn鈥檛 as scary as it sounds鈥�.
鈥淒on鈥檛 just consume things, create things,鈥� said Obama, who took part in an Hour of Code at the White House earlier today.
鈥淲hether you鈥檙e a young man trying his hand at programming for the first time or a young woman who鈥檚 already hard at work on the next big thing,鈥� Obama added, 鈥渨e鈥檙e counting on you, America鈥檚 young people, to keep us on the cutting edge鈥�
Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi and National Science Foundation Director France C贸rdova announced a public-private partnership to expand computer science education in 60 U.S. school districts, including the seven largest school systems.
Partovi also pledged to prepare 25,000 educators to teach computer science by the fall of 2016. Training of the first 10,000 teachers, who will begin teaching the courses this coming fall, is currently underway.
Lastly, Partovi expressed a commitment to the issue of diversity in the technology field, with the goal of enabling one million girls and one million black and Hispanic students to take an introductory course in computer science over the next two years.
鈥淭hese aren鈥檛 ideals,鈥� said Partovi, who moderated a panel discussion of education, science, and technology leaders. 鈥淭hese are solutions. We already have the staff and the funding...hold us accountable.鈥�
Recently, $20 million in new funding came from a range of corporations, foundations and individuals, including top tech companies Google and Microsoft. Contributions also continue to pour in from the 鈥攚hich, with seven days left, has raised $4.3 million of its $5 million goal.
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Photo: President Barack Obama participates in Hour of Code at the White House on Monday, Dec. 8, with middle school students from Newark, N.J.'s South Seventeenth Street School, Code.org Co-Founder Hadi Partovi, and Chief Technology Officer of the United States Megan Smith. (Code.org).