Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mark Zuckerberg And John Doerr Donate $1M To Expand The Hour Of Code Campaign

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-up dept.

theodp writes Techcrunch reports that Mark Zuckerberg has donated $500K to expand the Hour of Code campaign, which aims to reach 100 million students this year with its learn-to-code tutorials, including its top-featured tutorial starring Zuckerberg (video). Techcrunch adds that Zuckerberg's donation will be matched by fellow tutorial team teacher Bill Gates (video), Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, Salesforce, Google, and others. Zuck and Gates appear to have a sizable captive audience — a Code.org District Partnership Model brochure on the code-or-no-HS-diploma-for-you Chicago Public Schools' website calls for partner districts to "hold a district-wide Hour of Code event each year" for three years.

24 comments

  1. Generosity knows no bounds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    $500.000 is what, the lining of Mark Zuckerberg's glovebox? What an inspiration...

    1. Re:Generosity knows no bounds... by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It isn't generous. He's trying to train more programmers so he doesn't have to pay them as much.

      Supply and demand, etc.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re: Generosity knows no bounds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep and at what 1/10th of a cent per student, not a bad investment. Only one problem, if coding were that simple we would already have everyone doing it. There are thousands of free resources for coding.
      The simple face is that costing is about as difficult as math. But less useful in daily life. Maybe if they taught something like sql, which may help some later this might make some sense. But even then most who need to know to code can learn it in a specialized environment.
      There is no need or even a want for this, our schools are already in bad shape thanks to common core, and the loss of the arts, so now we have to sacrifice even more from our schools.

    3. Re:Generosity knows no bounds... by canwaf · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the UK average worker's equivalent of £3.78 Zuck. Much appreciated.

  2. Does that mean by Racemaniac · · Score: 3, Funny

    it will be 2 hours now?

    1. Re:Does that mean by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Eventually it will be 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Think of all the fun you'll have doing free work for Mr. Suckerberg.

    2. Re:Does that mean by crazyprogrammer · · Score: 1

      It could be 2 hours without the extra $1M. Just hold it at 2am tomorrow and when DST ends there will be another hour.

      --
      "the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
  3. Billionaires by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Billionaires throw coins into the crowds. Big fucking deal.

  4. Is this the sexist one ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this the one where women are paid $20 an hour to take it and men get nothing, because: Sexism.

    1. Re:Is this the sexist one ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's true - where I live, you have to pay women more than men if you want them to "take it".

      Ooh yeah.

      What was the question?

  5. Give it up already .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    From what I read on Slashdot, the likes of Zuckerberg and Gates meet every fucking day to work on their plans to drive IT wages down. Give it a rest!

    Any REAL billionaire would be cruising around on their obscenely large yacht, snorting big mountains of coke, fucking the very finest hookers, shooting rare wildlife with machine-guns. You have enough money already you GREEDY FUCKS.

  6. GOTTA KEEP THOSE LABOR COSTS DOWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck them.

  7. Zuckerberg and Gates are coge gurus? by Required+Snark · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Saying everyone should be exposed to code is like saying everyone needs to be exposed to wiring a house/apartment/garage. Just because we generally live in houses doesn't mean that we should all know how to build one. The same goes for software.

    This is weirdly narcissistic. It's slightly less odd for a corporation like Google or Red Hat, although it falls into the category of corporate communications as shameless self-promotion. For Zuckerberg and Gates, it's very much an exercise in egomania. Firstly, they are not primarily known as actual code savants. They made their mark and fortune as managers/businessmen, not because of their raw technical savvy. Other people did the heavy technical lifting. So having them get up and wave the "code is the key" flag is factually misleading.

    Secondly, having these people encourage a coding career is flat out hypocrisy. They have both been active advocates of unlimited 1H-B visa programs and have personally been responsible for shipping jobs out of the US. Zuckerberg in particular is outspoken about his anti-US worker sentiment. So now he want to train even more people to be out of a job in the US. I guess money can buy a cover up of anything.

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
    1. Re:Zuckerberg and Gates are coge gurus? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Bennet Haselton himself could not have said it better. Longer, yes.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:Zuckerberg and Gates are coge gurus? by danielr7z · · Score: 1

      Well, at least let Facebook CEO invest his money in not too bad things such as this. Before his investors start asking him for real profits: http://www.forbes.com/sites/in...

    3. Re:Zuckerberg and Gates are coge gurus? by MacTO · · Score: 1

      Everyone who receives a high school diploma is, in a sense, exposed to wiring a house. It is called the electricity unit in science. These units are a mandatory part of the science curriculum in the primary and secondary grades. They teach you everything you need to know to wire a house except how to do it to code.

      In the same vein, I would argue that children and youth should be exposed to programming. It doesn't have to be a standalone course that you need to pass in order to graduate. It may be a unit in an existing course, such as mathematics. Regardless of what form it takes, it should be enough to give children/youth an idea of what programming is and whether they're interested in it. If those units/courses go a step further and teach transferable skills (e.g. various approaches to problem solving) it would be going far beyond most of the existing parts of the curriculum, such as those electricity units.

    4. Re:Zuckerberg and Gates are coge gurus? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, more or less.

      I'm thinking Mathematic or Matlab in high school mathematics classes, perhaps for one or two weeks. Or once-per week throughout part of the year.

      I think a general technology subject would be good. Not just coding. You start out with keyboarding, then learn office products (not just MS), how to get around various operating systems, networking, hardware, etc. With a "go at your own pace" sort of thing. Still, not as a core subject.

    5. Re:Zuckerberg and Gates are coge gurus? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting example. There was a time when "everyone should be able to wire a plug".
      Taking an hour to learn to code is the same as learning to wire a plug. That is, it is the start of wiring stuff, but doesn't really give much insight into wiring a house beyond the fact that there are wires, and you have to get them into devices, and think about fuses and stuff.

      Similarly coding - you may be able to write some simple excel formula to sort out your finances, or something, but that doesn't mean you can write a real time operating system. However it's still useful to know.
      Is it worth it? Should everyone know how to do simple coding enough to "wire a spreadsheet"? There are enough people saying yes it appears.

    6. Re:Zuckerberg and Gates are coge gurus? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Their motivation is simple: They want a cheaper supply of IT labor so that they have more profits.

      The impact of that on society per general employment, bubbles, etc. is not their care, for good or bad.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  8. They expanded it... by Ecuador · · Score: 1

    ... it is now the Hour and Ten Minutes of Code campaign.

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  9. Wages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is just a glorified way of driving wages down for IT. The "Valley" got caught sending emails trying to do it the easy way, way back when. Now they've gotten clever about it.

  10. Learn to code in an hour? I'm in! by ColonelPanic · · Score: 1

    Sixty minutes from now, I'm going to be an expert in Haskell comonads. This is awesome.

    --
    "Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
  11. Tiny Donation by CedgeS · · Score: 1

    It isn't news when I donate $2.50 to something, which is the same fraction of my annual income.

  12. You can already learn coding on the web by johncandale · · Score: 1

    Anyone who can get a computer and internet can learn coding. There are already tons of help forums and e-books, compilers, etc. How did anyone learn coding before this day?