Recently, Real Madrid footballers (soccer players to the those in the US) spoke to local school students via Skype about the importance of learning computer skills. Real Madrid’s Marcelo Vieira, Sergio Ramos and Isco Alarcon spoke with the school students as part of Hour of Code. Hour of Code is a project developed by Code.org, which believes “every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science.”
In 2017, Microsoft will help Code.org’s Hour of Code by offering over 1,000 free programming events and workshops in over 60 countries. Microsoft will host 40 workshops in Spain, offering over 2,000 kids the opportunity to learn computing skills. In the beginning of 2016, the Real Madrid Foundation, in partnership with Microsoft, took part in an event helping 150 students from schools in Spain, Portugal, and Colombia. Here’s a video of some students talking about why they love coding.
Recently, Microsoft released Minecraft Hour of Code Designer, which allowed users to create their own version of Minecraft from scratch. Currently, Minecraft Hour of Code Designer is available in about 50 languages.
Pilar López, President of Microsoft Ibérica, is hopeful that education is key to a better future for everyone:
“Education needs to evolve in line with the needs of society and transform and adapt to increasingly digital environments. The schoolchildren of today will do jobs that have not been invented yet. For this reason, quality teaching in programming and computing for children is essential from primary school onwards. By providing this training, we will be preparing them to meet the job requirements of the digital economy.”
By 2020, the European Commission estimates that there will be more than 900,000 jobs in the technology sector. Additionally, McKinsey, a consulting firm, published a report, detailing that almost half of the companies that McKinsey surveyed were unable to find qualified employees with the right technical skills.
