Accenture extends coding tutorial to Filipino and Vietnamese languages
Accenture has expanded its introductory student coding tutorial to 15 languages for this year’s Hour of Code event held across the globe, including Vietnamese and Tagalog.
With the economic world careening toward a major skills shortage crisis thanks to the rapidly advancing technologies of the digital revolution, the global professional services firm Accenture has set out to do its bit, recently committing $200 million over the next three years under its Skills to Succeed programme to support computer education around the world, including Code.org’s Hour of Code initiative.
To mark last week’s Computer Science Education Week, Accenture for the fourth consecutive year teamed up with Code.org, a global non-profit organisation which promotes access to computer science in schools and in particular for women and underrepresented minorities, to help deliver the annual Hour of Code event – which has now reached more than 686 million people with over 200,000 events registered across 180 countries this year.
The Hour of Code events provide a one-hour courtesy introduction to computer science, and to make it even more accessible, Accenture has this year expanded its tutorials to 15 languages, including lessons delivered in Filipino, Vietnamese and Chinese. Altogether, nearly 2,500 Accenture employees signed up to teach an hour of coding and computer science skills at events in their local communities, with events having taken place in every corner of Asia.“Every student should have the opportunity to learn computer science. It provides a critical foundation for success in any 21st-century career path, not just in ‘traditional’ IT, but also creative vocations – everything from graphic design to theater production,” said Code.org CEO and co-founder Hadi Partovi. “To-date, over 100 million students around the world have participated in Hour of Code. This is because organisations such as Accenture go above-and-beyond to advance our shared vision of equipping the youth of today with skills they’ll need in the future.”
For Accenture’s part, the firm last year developed its Intelligent Space Exploration coding tutorial, providing a hands-on demonstration for students on how artificial intelligence techniques can be applied to teach a robot to explore a new planet, such as through recognising plants and animals, and, fittingly, learning a new language and conversing with the planet’s inhabitants. More than 100,000 students have joined the tutorial since its launch.
“As disruptive technologies advance and have a growing impact on society, a significant skills gap is also growing – so much so that already millions of jobs requiring STEM skills are unfilled worldwide,” said Accenture’s chief technology & innovation officer Paul Daugherty. “It is critical that we equip today’s students – tomorrow’s workforce – with not just these skills, but also an understanding of how they can harness creativity and innovation to improve the way the world works and lives.”
STEM skills
Counting PwC among its major worldwide partners and supporters, Code.org has since its 2013 founding by brothers and Harvard computer science graduates Hadi and Ali Partovi achieved truly remarkable reach, with at least one in every ten students worldwide having participated in the Hour of Code programme to have already completed by last year 450 million hours of code – or, through its online platform, 22,358,743,224 lines of code written by 34 million students.