SINGAPORE, July 7, 2014 – Microsoft yesterday hosted kids and parents at its office giving them a fun introduction to the latest technology, smart photo taking and even making their own games at the first ever Singapore YouthSpark Kids Camp @ Microsoft.
Hands-on activities were led by Microsoft volunteers to guide participants, between the ages of five to thirteen, through a range of technological activities. They not only saw the latest technology, and also took their first steps towards building their own programs through code.org’s Hour of Code challenge and Microsoft Kodu Game Lab which lets kids create games on the PC and Xbox via a simple visual programming language.
Ms Clair Deevy, Corporate Social Responsibility Lead for Microsoft Asia Pacific said, “Coding is not something just for older kids or tech geeks, the activities were designed to be fun and show anyone they can learn to code and write their own basic programs.
Beyond the fun though we hope to excite more young people, especially young girls, about computer science and programming as those skills can help spring you into many careers and will become even more in demand in the future.”
The young participants program and play games that they have created on their own with the smart game coding track. In the smart photo taking activity, the kids first discovered how they can make photos pop with new tricks for capturing, editing and sharing photos from the phone and took it a step further by building interactive worlds with photos through the Photosynth app.
UN Women Singapore participated in the event by showcasing their new program, Women in STEM: Girls Today, Pioneers Tomorrow. The program aims to encourage more girls in Singapore to take up careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), through mentoring, events and a series of day camps for girls aged 10-15. In particular, the program will target girls who are at risk or from low income families.
“The percentage of women IT professionals in Singapore is only 27% at the moment, so we see a huge opportunity and we are delighted to be involved in the YouthSpark Kids Camp @ Microsoft to help spread the word, encourage and inspire more young women, “ said Mrinalini Venkatachalam, Program Manager, Singapore Committee for UN Women.
Computational thinking is a critical skill set do not exist today and likely require this ability. Introducing coding to Singaporeans, who ranked technology as one of the top industries they are interested in, helps groom our future technology professionals.
Part of Microsoft’s YouthSpark global commitment to empower youth, the YouthSpark Kids Camp @ Microsoft builds on the coding momentum started with the #WeSpeakCode campaign earlier this year. #WeSpeakCode seeks to make “Code – the official Second Language of Asia Pacific” and has been supported by stars such as Stefanie Sun and Eunice Olsen. It provides a taste of what coding is, demonstrates how accessible learning coding can be, and celebrates all the professional coders across the region.
Earlier this year as part of #WeSpeakCode and in line with its long-term commitment to invest in talent development to add vibrancy to the local technology ecosystem, Microsoft Singapore announced a partnership with Nanyang Polytechnic, with support from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), on a series of computational thinking courses to further build a strong coding community in Singapore. This is aligned with the Infocomm Media Masterplan focus of developing computational thinking as a national capability.
Five other schools in Singapore have also expressed interest in running coding in their classrooms by signing up for the Code.org Hour of Code activity with support from Microsoft. Additional schools who are interested can visit www.wespeakcode.net for more information.
Follow our conversation on Twitter at #WeSpeakCode and #YouthSpark.
For more information on #WeSpeakCode visit www.wespeakcode.net.
More information on the Singapore Committee for Women’s STEM program can be found at www.girls2pioneers.org.