An hour is enough to learn how to program with The Code Hour

"In 15 years we will teach programming in the same way we teach how to read and write ... and wonder why we were not doing it before." With these words, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg sums up the spirit of The Code Hour, a global initiative to extend programming skills throughout the world for free in one hour.

Opinno has been selected this year as Spanish partner of the initiative, a task that it exercises through the dissemination of the event and by promoting the use of the code in universities and companies with which it collaborates. This selection places it at the height of giants like Microsoft, French partner of The Code Hour, and Google, which works from the UK.

The 2014 edition has coincided with frames of the European Week of the Code, which took place between the 11th and 17th of October, and Computer Science Education Week, held between the 8th and 14th of December. On the starting day of the latter, Barack Obama issued a video call to summon all the citizens of his country. Thanks to all these actions, the call ended with nearly 75 million participants in more than 180 countries worldwide.

The Code Hour runs by offering various one-hour tutorials. The initiative is to be guided by teachers who organize their own The Code Hour events. However, anyone who wants to can follow autonomously through the resources posted on the web, all for free.

The call for this year has resulted in nearly 77,500 events held around the world. Spain has been ranked in the top 10 host countries thanks to the 490 actions that have taken place in the country.

To make the teaching materials more attractive, they have been generated based on characters from popular culture. Last year it was the turn of the Angry Birds this year the baton has been passed to the protagonists of the film Frozen. The campaign also features a video taught by speakers like Zuckerberg himself and the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates.

The Time Code does not require any experience from those who want to participate, the program includes all the necessary user levels to meet the needs of each person. Therefore, it is suitable for the public from the age of 4 up to 104 years old. This edition has also had tutorials in over 30 languages.

Nothing has served as a deterrent to participate in this campaign, even not having access to a computer. The video tutorials offered during this time have worked on tablets, smartphones, and computers. In addition, the initiative has made other educational resources available to interested parties that do not require connection to any device to reach all audiences.

Social causes occupy one of the main lines that Opinno supports. Therefore, it commits to collaborating with initiatives like The Code Hour that not only define the philosophy of the company but also help it to expand to achieve a fairer society and one that is dominated by equal opportunities.