This year’s Hour of Code

By
Monday, 14 December 2015

Hour of Code is an international program that aims to foster interest in learning about computer science. Spending a little time learning to code helps nurture problem-solving skills, logic, and creativity. By starting early, students get a foundation for success on any 21st-century career path. And even though computer science is the defining field of the 21st century, most of us never learn it, and many (pre-college) schools don’t offer it.

This is why we feel it’s so important to jump in, and we’re not alone. During this year’s Computer Science Ed Week, 350+ non-profit, education, and corporate partners in more than 180 countries participated in 200,000 Hour of Code events. Some 10,000 employees volunteered in classrooms to help.

We pitched in to create a custom #HourOfCode emoji, and engineers volunteered in five cities where we have offices. At the Tenderloin Community School near our San Francisco office, Twitter employees taught coding to kids from K-5, using the code.org curriculum and Chromebooks we donated to the school earlier via our Hardware for Good program.

“Hour of Code is one of the most rewarding hours of volunteering I’ve been part of,” said Joe Blubaugh, senior software engineer at Twitter. “Helping kids learn is a great way to be a positive part of our neighborhood and city. It feels great to be able to reach out and make a difference.”

Sarah Wartman, the Technology Coordinator at the Tenderloin Community School, also saw a lot of value from our Hour of Code fun. “[The program is] a unique way to acquaint our students with the diverse career paths available to them later on,” she said. “And it’s a great way to get them interested using something fun and engaging, like block coding with popular games like Minecraft and Angry Birds. It’s also an excellent opportunity for the kids to hear from our wonderful volunteers about how they got started on their own career path.”

To relive it all, check out the #HourOfCode livestream on Twitter.