Hour of Code Launching This Week!

Four months ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop across a table from my close friend, Hadi Partovi. He was pitching me on an audacious idea called the Hour of Code -- an effort to get every student in the US to take a first step toward learning computer science. It was a crazy idea, especially from what was then essentially just a team of one, but I was inspired by his passion. Just a few days later I joined the team as Chief Evangelist with the responsibility of recruiting a network of partners and supporters needed to turn that dream into a reality.

Fast forward to today. With your help, his crazy idea has become a reality. As I write this, with a few hours still to go before the official launch, more than 1.4 million students have already done their Hour of Code, with millions more pre-registered. The White House has released a video of the President promoting the Hour of Code, and we have released our own video showing a dozen celebrities (and dozens of others) all learning to code for the first time (Watch it now!)



Google is linking directly to the Hour of Code from their homepage. Apple and Microsoft are hosting Hour of Code events in all of their retail stores. Tens of thousands of schools are hosting Hour of Code events in their classrooms. All indications are that this will be the largest learning event in history.

None of this, however, would have been possible without your help, and the help of the hundreds of other partners. You have helped us recruit the educators, parents, and students that are so critical to the success of this movement. As we kick off Computer Science Education Week, and the Hour of Code, I want to humbly thank you for your help and support. An hour of learning to code can be enough to change a student’s life.

Please continue to help us promote the Hour of Code -- CSEdWeek has only just begun!! -- and do whatever you can to encourage students to engage with our tutorials at http://csedweek.org/ We’ll send out an update at the end of this week with a summary of how everything went!

James Gwertzman
Chief Evangelist, Code.org