In all organisations today, there is a need to have a coder at the office, someone who is tech savvy. Today there are more and more jobs which are needed to be filled with the right personnel who have the required skills to fill such roles; however, the reality is there is a decreasing number of people with these skills.The problem starts young; there seems to be not enough youngsters wanting to start a career in computer programming. What has to be established for our younger generations is just what is involved in computer coding.
Vikas Gupta, former head of consumer payments at Google believes that the key is starting them early. Research suggests that children could start coding as young as five (according to an MIT study that Mr Gupta came across). He did realise that to enable children as young as five to begin computer programming there would have to be a certain product that would allow children to do so; as they will not be able to grasp something as advanced as an entire computer. So he set about to design a product that would allow children to use; have fun with and learn about computer programming. The result was two robots named Bo and Yana.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSRekzTPVE0
Bo and Yana allow children to learn about programming without even realising it. Yanna is the smaller of the two robots and can be programmed to make sound, where as Bo can be programmed to move around. The robots are controlled wirelessly via a tablet or a smartphone with an added appropriate app, however the app is only available for iOS at present; however, depending on its success will probably extend its availability later on. As an example of what the robots are able to do, Gupta had mentioned that: "the robots can be programmed to play hide-and-seek".
The plan is start selling the robots in the summer of 2014. Gupta is keen to have them within schools as he hopes to provide children with a basis for computer programming.
Whether or not it will prove to be a success only time will tell. The important aspect to notice here is that a situation had been noticed (something in which can cause a problem in the future) what Gupta has done is looked into something that resolve the issue. That is most definitely a step in the right direction; who knows our next Steve Jobs could be 5-year-old who was given Bo and Yanna to start their life in computer programming.
