Summer Coding: U.S. CTO Wants You to Get Tech Skills This Year

Missed out on that New Year’s resolution to learn a programming language — the goal that 300,000 people signed up for, including New York Mayor Bloomberg? Too busy with school to make it happen? You’ll get another, even easier shot at that goal this summer.

Codecademy, the brand-new entity behind that plan, has announced “Code Summer +” — a condensed version of its curriculum, starting this May. The announcement was part of an event with U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra.

The White House CTO was in San Francisco on Tuesday to push President Obama’s Summer Jobs + plan — and to rack up some new commitments from the tech industry.

“Codecademy is accessible to everyone,” Chopra said. “I’m very bullish on encouraging these tools.”

Standing alongside Chopra and Codecademy co-founder Zach Sim was Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus and head of a number of foundations that he pledged to help Summer Jobs +. The Level Playing Field Institute and the College Bound Brotherhood will place disadvantaged and minority students in top Silicon Valley firms and Universities.

Kapor recounted that his own career began with a summer job in 1966 that had provided him access to a computer for the first time. “Half the battle with young people is getting the idea that there’s a world they can aspire to,” he said. “We can do a much better job in Silicon Valley of being open to the people knocking on our doors, and overcoming our hidden biases.”

Chopra also announced that the government would create a Schema.org database of summer jobs within 60 days — similar to one that has already been created for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

What do you think? How important are summer jobs in shaping the future of employment and education? Do Chopra’s commitments go far enough, and what else could the government be doing? Let us know in the comments.

More About: barack obama, Codecademy, Lotus, mitch kapor

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