The BBC has announced it will be distributing one million micro-computers to UK schoolchildren as part of the Make it Digital initiative.
BBC’s Make It Digital initiative is aimed at arousing youngsters’ interest in coding and programming in a bid to meet an expected skills shortage of some 1.4 million in Britain’s digital sectors over the next five years. The initiative will see BBC giving away a “Micro Bit” coding device to every year-7 child in the British Isles by autumn 2015.
“The Micro Bit will be a small, wearable device with an LED display that children can programme in a number of ways,” the broadcaster announced.
“It will be a standalone, entry-level coding device that allows children to pick it up, plug it into a computer and start creating with it immediately.”
BBC will also launch coding-based programmes and activities including a drama based on Grand Theft Auto and a documentary about Bletchley Park to support the scheme. A Make it Digital Traineeship meanwhile will create opportunities for up to 5,000 young unemployed people.
ARM, BT, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Young Rewired State, BT, TeenTech, and Code Club are some of the other big names to have lent their hands for the cause.
“This is exactly what the BBC is all about – bringing the industry together on an unprecedented scale and making a difference to millions,” said BBC director-general Tony Hall during a press conference.
“Just as we did with the BBC Micro in the 1980s, we want to inspire the digital visionaries of the future. Only the BBC can bring partners together to attempt something this ambitious, this important to Britain’s future on the world stage.”
A better spend of license fee money…would be great if integrated with programs on telly; even better if it was open source.