Code-writing skills needed governor tells Northwest Arkansas students

NWA Democrat-Gazette/ANTHONY REYES • @NWATONYR Bryana Herrera, Springdale High School junior, shows Gov. Asa Hutchinson a chat box program she made Wednesday at the school. Hutchinson spoke to the all the school’s students earlier in the morning about increasing their computer coding knowledge and encouraging them to take coding classes. He then visited the class to talk to students about their projects. For photo galleries, go to nwadg.com/photos.
NWA Democrat-Gazette/ANTHONY REYES • @NWATONYR Bryana Herrera, Springdale High School junior, shows Gov. Asa Hutchinson a chat box program she made Wednesday at the school. Hutchinson spoke to the all the school’s students earlier in the morning about increasing their computer coding knowledge and encouraging them to take coding classes. He then visited the class to talk to students about their projects. For photo galleries, go to nwadg.com/photos.

ROGERS -- Gov. Asa Hutchinson's interest in computer programming soared after the president of the United States asked him a question he had trouble answering, Hutchinson told students at Rogers High School on Wednesday.

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Department of Homeland Security was formed with Hutchinson as its under-secretary for transportation and border security. Department officials met with President George W. Bush and other administration officials and the topic came up about how to check the thousands of ships and planes that arrive in the country each day.

"The president turned to me and said, 'Asa, what are we doing about that?'" Hutchinson told an assembly of the high school's students.

"It was one of those moments when I wished I had someone working for me that I could have turned to and asked, 'John, what are we doing about that?'" the governor said. Shortly after that awkward moment, his department developed computer programs to search for patterns in the shipping and airline industries. Instead of screening every arrival, they looked for trips that differed from those usual patterns.

"Before long, we found a shipment from China that was supposed to be carrying chilled trout to Costa Rica, but the ship didn't make the usual stops or get the usual permits for such a cargo," Hutchinson said. "We inspected that ship and what we found wasn't chilled trout. It was an illegal shipment of arms to Costa Rica."

Wednesday's visit was the governor's first stop on a statewide tour of high schools to promote his initiative to have computer programming code taught statewide. He also visited Springdale High School on Wednesday.

The interception of weapons is just an example of what computers are capable of, Hutchinson said. There are few tasks in any field, government or business, to which a talented computer code-writer cannot apply his skill, Hutchinson told the assembly.

"Whatever field you want to get in to, there's a need for computer programmers," the governor said. "People planting rice in Arkansas use computers to level the land and control the water." A member of his 2014 campaign for governor started his own business after writing an application for handling the campaign's contributions, he said.

A programmer can expect a starting salary of $60,000 a year, the governor said. But besides direct personal benefit, a programmer has more opportunity to start his own business than professionals in almost any other field, Hutchinson said. That will help others, he said.

"I think he's right," said Ruby Alvarez, 15, a freshman who heard the speech. "Little by little, our life depends more on computers."

Computer coding now qualifies as a mathematics credit under a package of legislation that passed earlier this year with Hutchinson's support.

"Making it a credit that counts for a required course in math instead of having it as an elective you can take if you want to is huge," said Jeff Anderson, the computer programming teacher at Rogers High School. "There will be a lot of people who will take it now who wouldn't have taken it before because it wouldn't fit their schedule."

There are also students who have aptitude for coding who don't thrive in more traditional branches of mathematics such as geometry or algebra, Anderson said.

The target audience of the talk was freshmen in the audience, said Principal Charles Lee. "The seniors are graduating and the juniors have already picked their classes for next year," Lee said. "So the younger ones are the people we're really trying to reach about this."

Hutchinson asked for a show of hands in the nearly full 1,000-seat auditorium before his talk, asking for those who had taken or were considering a coding class. Few hands went up. After his talk, which included an audio-visual recording from code.org, he asked who would consider taking such a class. Most of the students' hands went up.

Code.org is a nonprofit computer literacy advocacy group. Its video includes talks from leaders throughout the information industry, such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Valve Corp. founder Gabe Newell.

NW News on 05/07/2015

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