My Anita Borg Google Speech to encourage High School students to join Computer Science.
As part of my application for the famous Anita Borg Scholarship I needed to write a 5mn speech to a group of high school students to encourage them to study CS. This is what I wrote:
“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.” Alan
How many of you want to become football players? How many of you want to become doctors? And how
How many of you want to become Computer Scientists?
(Students raise they hands)
17/10/2.
The numbers that we have here today would change is I asked this question tomorrow but the number of Computer Scientists would always be the lowest number.
What do I want do? Why is Computer Science not the “sexy” option?
It is strange that we are expected to answer this question already in high school because even adults might not be aware of what they want to do in five years time. However, what we want and what we believe in are highly influenced by our peers, even more during an age of confusion and insecurities like you are in.
I was there, not so long ago and asked to myself that same question: What do I want to do with my life?
And when I was talking about possible directions of my professional career I remember that becoming a computer scientist wasn’t in the list. So, How did I end up joining what seems to be the “ Dark side”?
Let me share with you my story.
I chose to study Architecture after High school because I thought itwould enable me to build real buildings. The reality was that all the projects I created stayed on paper. It takes a lot of resources to construct a building. If I had chosen to become a computer scientist I could have been able to work in the Architecture field, even without an Architecture degree building the tools that allow Architects to create buildings.
So you are probably thinking that this is strange but let’s think about it for a moment. What are programmers today? We are building software that is the backbone of all the cool gadgets that we love so much. It doesn’t matter how old you are, where you come from, or how much money you have: you only need a computer and an idea and you can start building a project in any sector. Learning to code was the tool that allowed me t o build my first startup with quite some success a nd that same tool is allowing me to create a new app . It doesn’t matter what you are interested in. You only need one tool: Software
It takes two ingredients to be a successful computer scientist and good coding skills are not the most important one. Let’s talk about ideas.How can you create an app idea that solves a real problem? It is not as hard as it seems. Imagine you and your friends want to make a game for the class and you could compete for different awards Wouldn’t it be fun? Being able to build things like that could change the atmosphere in the class and you would even make new friends!
Games are fun, but coding is not only about it. Technology is driving the future in every industry. Why? Because it allows you to find new ways to solve really important problems. Two girls were tired of being bothered by strangers in bars and decided to create the app CoffeeMeetsBagel in order to decide who do they want to meet. In the music industry, thanks to Spotify you can listen to all the songs that your favourite singer has launched in your phone, even without wifi! In fashion, Polyvore allows you to make collages from pictures of clothing and share them with your friends.
We all know about Apps but there is much more to it. Think about it: government, education, medicine, economy, music…the list goes on. All of these fields have been vastly transformed in the last twenty years by developments in Computer Science. We can now climb mount Everest while sitting in our sofa thanks to Virtual Reality devices such as Oculus to the point where you are going to start wondering if what you see is real or not.
This is just the beginning. There is a lot of massive change going on. Take some random magazines or news and browse through the headlines. It is time to come up with good solutions and invent forward to save our planet. W ith the tools that you have at your disposal you can drive the future and create even more amazing things. Even if turning into a computer scientist would not be your first choice of professional career, it might be worth considering if you want to contribute to the new narrative, we are all waiting for you. S o whether you want to build an app or the next space ship you only need to choose one path:Computer Science. You are the one’s who will change our world. So go for it!
Hope you enjoyed it and if you are a high school student or are thinking to join CS that helped you to see a bit better what CS is all About!
