Every schoolchild needs to learn computer coding as much as he or she needs to learn English, says the president of an Atlanta-based tech company that’s backing up his belief to the tune of at least a million dollars.
"Coding is a language," says Ari Ioannides, president and chief software architect of Emerald Data Solutions, but it's seldom taught, especially in elementary school. The company is sponsoring a nationwide contest in the hope of changing that.
School systems can apply for a grant that will provide a computer science curriculum to teach coding, plus an instructor to help train teachers in using it.
“Our goal is that all elementary school students in the United States will learn coding, and we’re providing the resources to get that done,” he said.
Read more here about how the company hopes to do that, what the obstacles are and why Ioannides thinks it's so important.