President Obama writes Frozen code with school group

 

American President Barack Obama has written a line of computer code to help animate a character from the film Frozen.

He joined a group of pupils taking part in the "Hour of Code" project, a 60-minute introduction to computer science set up by the group code.org. A drive to widen access to introductory computer science lessons in schools across the US was announced yesterday.

In the UK, pupils are now taught coding in schools from the age of five. "While no-one is born a computer scientist, becoming a computer scientist isn't as scary as it sounds," President Obama said in a YouTube video."With hard work and a little math and science, anyone can do it.''

More than 48 million people signed up to get involved with Computer Science Education Week, currently running in the US, the president added. "Don't just consume things, create things," he said. An Hour of Code class was also held at the prime minister's residence in Downing Street, London, yesterday. 

"There's no secret to success in the modern world. If countries are going to win in the global race and children compete and get the best jobs, you need mathematicians and scientists - pure and simple," said David Cameron, announcing extra training for maths and science teachers in England's schools.

"It will take time but it's absolutely vital for the success of our country that we teach maths and science and computing in the modern way, because that will be one of the things that will determine whether we succeed or not," he said.