0:00:00.720,0:00:04.656
Code is the next universal language.

0:00:04.680,0:00:08.856
In the seventies, it was punk music[br]that drove the whole generation.

0:00:08.880,0:00:11.336
In the eighties, it was probably money.

0:00:11.360,0:00:13.696
But for my generation of people,

0:00:13.720,0:00:18.536
software is the interface[br]to our imagination and our world.

0:00:18.560,0:00:20.256
And that means that we need

0:00:20.280,0:00:23.536
a radically, radically[br]more diverse set of people

0:00:23.560,0:00:25.336
to build those products,

0:00:25.360,0:00:30.296
to not see computers as mechanical[br]and lonely and boring and magic,

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to see them as things[br]that they can tinker

0:00:32.320,0:00:34.760
and turn around and twist,[br]and so forth.

0:00:35.720,0:00:39.496
My personal journey into the world[br]of programming and technology

0:00:39.520,0:00:42.496
started at the tender age of 14.

0:00:42.520,0:00:46.616
I had this mad teenage crush[br]on an older man,

0:00:46.640,0:00:48.976
and the older man in question[br]just happened to be

0:00:49.000,0:00:53.416
the then Vice President[br]of the United States, Mr. Al Gore.

0:00:53.440,0:00:56.496
And I did what every single[br]teenage girl would want to do.

0:00:56.520,0:00:58.736
I wanted to somehow[br]express all of this love,

0:00:58.760,0:01:01.336
so I built him a website, it's over here.

0:01:01.360,0:01:04.296
And in 2001, there was no Tumblr,

0:01:04.319,0:01:06.576
there was no Facebook,[br]there was no Pinterest.

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So I needed to learn to code

0:01:08.760,0:01:12.136
in order to express[br]all of this longing and loving.

0:01:12.160,0:01:14.496
And that is how programming[br]started for me.

0:01:14.520,0:01:17.056
It started as a means of self-expression.

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Just like when I was smaller,[br]I would use crayons and legos.

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And when I was older, I would use[br]guitar lessons and theater plays.

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But then, there were other things[br]to get excited about,

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like poetry and knitting socks

0:01:31.360,0:01:34.656
and conjugating French irregular verbs

0:01:34.680,0:01:36.536
and coming up with make-believe worlds

0:01:36.560,0:01:39.696
and Bertrand Russell and his philosophy.

0:01:39.720,0:01:41.616
And I started to be one of those people

0:01:41.640,0:01:45.320
who felt that computers[br]are boring and technical and lonely.

0:01:46.120,0:01:47.936
Here's what I think today.

0:01:47.960,0:01:52.016
Little girls don't know that they[br]are not supposed to like computers.

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Little girls are amazing.

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They are really, really good[br]at concentrating on things

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and being exact and they ask[br]amazing questions like,

0:02:00.760,0:02:03.336
"What?" and "Why?"[br]and "How?" and "What if?"

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And they don't know that they[br]are not supposed to like computers.

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It's the parents who do.

0:02:09.720,0:02:11.015
It's us parents who feel

0:02:11.039,0:02:16.136
like computer science[br]is this esoteric, weird science discipline

0:02:16.160,0:02:19.816
that only belongs to the mystery makers.

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That it's almost as far removed[br]from everyday life

0:02:22.600,0:02:25.136
as, say, nuclear physics.

0:02:25.160,0:02:27.616
And they are partly right about that.

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There's a lot of syntax[br]and controls and data structures

0:02:31.160,0:02:33.816
and algorithms and practices,

0:02:33.840,0:02:36.416
protocols and paradigms in programming.

0:02:36.440,0:02:40.736
And we as a community,[br]we've made computers smaller and smaller.

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We've built layers and layers[br]of abstraction on top of each other

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between the man and the machine

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to the point that we no longer[br]have any idea how computers work

0:02:50.080,0:02:52.256
or how to talk to them.

0:02:52.280,0:02:55.056
And we do teach our kids[br]how the human body works,

0:02:55.080,0:02:58.176
we teach them how[br]the combustion engine functions

0:02:58.200,0:03:01.216
and we even tell them[br]that if you want to really be an astronaut

0:03:01.240,0:03:02.696
you can become one.

0:03:02.720,0:03:04.896
But when the kid comes to us and asks,

0:03:04.920,0:03:07.656
"So, what is a bubble sort algorithm?"

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Or, "How does the computer know[br]what happens when I press 'play,'

0:03:12.120,0:03:13.976
how does it know which video to show?"

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Or, "Linda, is Internet a place?"

0:03:16.600,0:03:19.320
We adults, we grow oddly silent.

0:03:20.400,0:03:22.856
"It's magic," some of us say.

0:03:22.880,0:03:25.600
"It's too complicated," the others say.

0:03:26.520,0:03:28.016
Well, it's neither.

0:03:28.040,0:03:30.616
It's not magic and it's not complicated.

0:03:30.640,0:03:34.256
It all just happened[br]really, really, really fast.

0:03:34.280,0:03:37.176
Computer scientists built[br]these amazing, beautiful machines,

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but they made them[br]very, very foreign to us,

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and also the language we speak[br]to the computers

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so that we don't know[br]how to speak to the computers anymore

0:03:44.920,0:03:47.416
without our fancy user interfaces.

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And that's why no one recognized

0:03:49.040,0:03:51.736
that when I was conjugating[br]French irregular verbs,

0:03:51.760,0:03:55.016
I was actually practicing[br]my pattern recognition skills.

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And when I was excited about knitting,

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I actually was following[br]a sequence of symbolic commands

0:04:00.920,0:04:02.656
that included loops inside of them.

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And that Bertrand Russell's lifelong quest

0:04:05.120,0:04:09.096
to find an exact language[br]between English and mathematics

0:04:09.120,0:04:11.440
found its home inside of a computer.

0:04:12.080,0:04:14.280
I was a programmer, but no one knew it.

0:04:15.080,0:04:19.536
The kids of today, they tap, swipe[br]and pinch their way through the world.

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But unless we give them tools[br]to build with computers,

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we are raising only consumers[br]instead of creators.

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This whole quest[br]led me to this little girl.

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Her name is Ruby, she is six years old.

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She is completely fearless,[br]imaginative and a little bit bossy.

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And every time[br]I would run into a problem

0:04:38.320,0:04:40.576
in trying to teach[br]myself programming like,

0:04:40.600,0:04:44.576
"What is object-oriented design[br]or what is garbage collection?",

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I would try to imagine how a six-year-old[br]little girl would explain the problem.

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And I wrote a book about her[br]and I illustrated it

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and the things[br]Ruby taught me go like this.

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Ruby taught me that you're[br]not supposed to be afraid

0:04:56.600,0:04:57.976
of the bugs under your bed.

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And even the biggest of the problems

0:05:00.080,0:05:03.576
are a group of tiny problems[br]stuck together.

0:05:03.600,0:05:06.336
And Ruby also introduced[br]me to her friends,

0:05:06.360,0:05:09.256
the colorful side of the Internet culture.

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She has friends like the Snow Leopard,

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who is beautiful but doesn't want[br]to play with the other kids.

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And she has friends like the green robots[br]that are really friendly but super messy.

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And she has friends like Linux the penguin

0:05:20.960,0:05:24.616
who's really ruthlessly efficient,[br]but somewhat hard to understand.

0:05:24.640,0:05:26.880
And idealistic foxes, and so on.

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In Ruby's world, you learn[br]technology through play.

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And, for instance, computers[br]are really good at repeating stuff,

0:05:34.800,0:05:37.696
so the way Ruby would teach[br]loops goes like this.

0:05:37.720,0:05:41.096
This is Ruby's favorite dance move,[br]it goes, "Clap, clap, stomp, stomp

0:05:41.120,0:05:42.616
clap, clap and jump."

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And you learn counter loops[br]by repeating that four times.

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And you learn while loops[br]by repeating that sequence

0:05:49.520,0:05:51.296
while I'm standing on one leg.

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And you learn until loops[br]by repeating that sequence

0:05:54.640,0:05:56.696
until mom gets really mad.

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(Laughter)

0:05:57.760,0:06:01.480
And most of all, you learn[br]that there are no ready answers.

0:06:02.320,0:06:05.056
When coming up with the curriculum[br]for Ruby's world,

0:06:05.080,0:06:08.376
I needed to really ask the kids[br]how they see the world

0:06:08.400,0:06:10.416
and what kind of questions they have

0:06:10.440,0:06:12.520
and I would organize[br]play testing sessions.

0:06:13.360,0:06:15.920
I would start by showing the kids[br]these four pictures.

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I would show them a picture of a car,

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a grocery store, a dog and a toilet.

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And I would ask, "Which one of these[br]do you think is a computer?"

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And the kids would be[br]very conservative and go,

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"None of these is a computer.

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I know what a computer is:

0:06:31.720,0:06:33.056
it's that glowing box

0:06:33.080,0:06:36.696
in front of which mom or dad[br]spends way too much time."

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But then we would talk

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and we would discover[br]that actually, a car is a computer,

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it has a navigation system inside of it.

0:06:43.480,0:06:46.256
And a dog -- a dog[br]might not be a computer,

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but it has a collar

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and the collar might have[br]a computer inside of it.

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And grocery stores, they have[br]so many different kinds of computers,

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like the cashier system[br]and the burglar alarms.

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And kids, you know what?

0:06:58.440,0:07:00.976
In Japan, toilets are computers

0:07:01.000,0:07:02.896
and there's even hackers who hack them.

0:07:02.920,0:07:04.696
(Laughter)

0:07:04.720,0:07:05.936
And we go further

0:07:05.960,0:07:09.176
and I give them these little stickers[br]with an on/off button on them.

0:07:09.200,0:07:12.816
And I tell the kids,[br]"Today you have this magic ability

0:07:12.840,0:07:16.456
to make anything in this room[br]into a computer."

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And again, the kids go,

0:07:17.840,0:07:20.736
"Sounds really hard,[br]I don't know the right answer for this."

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But I tell them, "Don't worry,

0:07:22.360,0:07:24.936
your parents don't know[br]the right answer, either.

0:07:24.960,0:07:27.176
They've just started[br]to hear about this thing

0:07:27.200,0:07:29.416
called The Internet of Things.

0:07:29.440,0:07:31.416
But you kids,[br]you are going to be the ones

0:07:31.440,0:07:35.816
who are really going to live up in a world[br]where everything is a computer."

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And then I had this little girl[br]who came to me

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and took a bicycle lamp

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and she said, "This bicycle lamp,[br]if it were a computer,

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it would change colors."

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And I said, "That's a really good idea,[br]what else could it do?"

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And she thinks and she thinks,

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and she goes, "If this bicycle lamp[br]were a computer,

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we could go on a biking trip[br]with my father

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and we would sleep in a tent

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and this biking lamp[br]could also be a movie projector."

0:08:03.640,0:08:05.600
And that's the moment I'm looking for,

0:08:06.400,0:08:07.976
the moment when the kid realizes

0:08:08.000,0:08:10.376
that the world[br]is definitely not ready yet,

0:08:10.400,0:08:13.376
that a really awesome way[br]of making the world more ready

0:08:13.400,0:08:15.616
is by building technology

0:08:15.640,0:08:18.400
and that each one of us[br]can be a part of that change.

0:08:19.200,0:08:22.256
Final story, we also built a computer.

0:08:22.280,0:08:27.016
And we got to know the bossy CPU[br]and the helpful RAM and ROM

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that help it remember things.

0:08:28.480,0:08:31.416
And after we've assembled[br]our computer together,

0:08:31.440,0:08:34.096
we also design an application for it.

0:08:34.120,0:08:36.135
And my favorite story is this little boy,

0:08:36.159,0:08:37.416
he's six years old

0:08:37.440,0:08:40.559
and his favorite thing in the world[br]is to be an astronaut.

0:08:41.120,0:08:43.376
And the boy, he has[br]these huge headphones on

0:08:43.400,0:08:46.656
and he's completely immersed[br]in his tiny paper computer

0:08:46.680,0:08:48.696
because you see, he's built his own

0:08:48.720,0:08:53.016
intergalactic planetary[br]navigation application.

0:08:53.040,0:08:56.176
And his father, the lone astronaut[br]in the Martian orbit,

0:08:56.200,0:08:58.056
is on the other side of the room

0:08:58.080,0:08:59.696
and the boy's important mission

0:08:59.720,0:09:02.640
is to bring the father[br]safely back to earth.

0:09:03.760,0:09:07.216
And these kids are going to have[br]a profoundly different view of the world

0:09:07.240,0:09:09.640
and the way we build it with technology.

0:09:10.840,0:09:14.696
Finally, the more approachable,[br]the more inclusive,

0:09:14.720,0:09:18.096
and the more diverse[br]we make the world of technology,

0:09:18.120,0:09:22.096
the more colorful and better[br]the world will look like.

0:09:22.120,0:09:24.696
So, imagine with me, for a moment,

0:09:24.720,0:09:27.296
a world where the stories we tell

0:09:27.320,0:09:30.336
about how things get made[br]don't only include

0:09:30.360,0:09:32.776
the twentysomething-year-old[br]Silicon Valley boys,

0:09:32.800,0:09:37.200
but also Kenyan schoolgirls[br]and Norwegian librarians.

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Imagine a world where[br]the little Ada Lovelaces of tomorrow,

0:09:42.240,0:09:45.456
who live in a permanent[br]reality of 1s and 0s,

0:09:45.480,0:09:50.096
they grow up to be very optimistic[br]and brave about technology.

0:09:50.120,0:09:53.496
They embrace the powers[br]and the opportunities

0:09:53.520,0:09:55.120
and the limitations of the world.

0:09:55.680,0:09:59.816
A world of technology[br]that is wonderful, whimsical

0:09:59.840,0:10:01.480
and a tiny bit weird.

0:10:03.120,0:10:04.616
When I was a girl,

0:10:04.640,0:10:06.656
I wanted to be a storyteller.

0:10:06.680,0:10:08.256
I loved make-believe worlds

0:10:08.280,0:10:09.896
and my favorite thing to do

0:10:09.920,0:10:13.976
was to wake up in the mornings[br]in Moominvalley.

0:10:14.000,0:10:17.120
In the afternoons,[br]I would roam around the Tatooines.

0:10:17.320,0:10:20.200
And in the evenings,[br]I would go to sleep in Narnia.

0:10:21.400,0:10:24.600
And programming turned out[br]to be the perfect profession for me.

0:10:25.720,0:10:27.656
I still create worlds.

0:10:27.680,0:10:30.640
Instead of stories, I do them with code.

0:10:31.640,0:10:34.696
Programming gives me this amazing power

0:10:34.720,0:10:37.096
to build my whole little universe

0:10:37.120,0:10:41.080
with its own rules[br]and paradigms and practices.

0:10:42.120,0:10:46.080
Create something out of nothing[br]with the pure power of logic.

0:10:46.920,0:10:48.136
Thank you.

0:10:48.160,0:10:50.600
(Applause)