The first president in human history who wrote code.

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/obama-becomes-first-president-write-computer-program/

Obama becomes first president to Write a computer program

• by Klint Finley
• 12.08.14 |
• 5:17 PM |
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Adrianna Mitchell, a middle-school student from Newark, NJ, explains a coding learning program to President Barack Obama D Uring an ' Hour of Code ' event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the ' White House Complex ' Washington, DC, on  Monday, DEC. 8, 2014. Jacquelyn Martin/ap

president Barack Obama told the world That everyone should learn what to code. And now he's putting his money where he mouth is.

earlier today, to help kick-off the annual computer Science education Week, Obama became the firs T president ever to write a computer program. It's a very simple program-all it does are draw a square on a screen-but that's the point, says Hadi Partovi, co-founder Code.org, an organization that promotes computer science education. "All programming starts simple," he says. "No one starts by creating a complicated game."

last year, Obama delivered a YouTube speech last year to promote computer science education Week, But didn ' t write any code himself. "Learning these skills isn ' t just important for your the future. It's important for our country's future, "the president said in The video. "If we want America to stay on the cutting edge, we need young Americans like you to master the tools and technology that Would change the the-the-just about everything. "

obama was echoing the sentiment of the growing Code literacy Movement, which seeks to expand comp Uter and programming education throughout the world. Code literacy advocates argue that with information technology embedding itself ever deeper to our lives, everyone shoul D Learn a bit more on how computers operate. A whole industry have sprung-up around the idea, with companies offering everything From children ' s games that te Ach the fundamentals of programming to intensive three month full-time "Bootcamps" dedicated to teaching people what to cod e well enough to land a job.

code.org introduced the" Hour of Code "campaign last year with the aim of convincing all students To try just one hour of programming and showing them that anyone can learn the basics. As part of the campaign, the organization created Awebsite that compiles many different hour long tutorials, most of which were created specifically for the campaign.

obama wrote his code part of the event today organized by Code.org, which brought brought" middle s Chool students from the South seventeenth Street School in Newark, New Jersey, to the White House, where they met the Pres Ident and worked on Hour of Code tutorials. Partovi says the president himself didn ' t complete the tutorial from start to finish, but instead went from station to STA tion watching the students work. He did, however, complete some of the exercises, which involved both using Google ' S blockly tool, and writing a Line of code using the programming language JavaScript.

Obama joins new York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tweeted in and that he New year's resolution is to learn to code , among major U.S. politicians who has taken the first steps towards code literacy.

The first president in human history who wrote code.