0:00:01.090,0:00:04.828
Code is the next universal language.

0:00:04.828,0:00:08.984
In the 70s, it was punk music[br]that drove a whole generation.

0:00:08.984,0:00:11.469
In the 80s, it was probably money.

0:00:11.469,0:00:13.721
But for my generation of people,

0:00:13.721,0:00:18.060
software is the interface[br]through our imagintion and our world.

0:00:18.060,0:00:20.659
And that means that we need

0:00:20.659,0:00:23.169
a radically, radically more diverse[br]set of people

0:00:23.169,0:00:25.369
to build those products,

0:00:25.369,0:00:30.578
to not see computers as mechanical[br]and lonely and boring and magic,

0:00:30.578,0:00:32.993
to see them as things[br]that they can tinker

0:00:32.993,0:00:35.988
and turn around and twist,[br]and so forth.

0:00:35.988,0:00:39.610
My personal journey into the world[br]of programming and technology

0:00:39.610,0:00:42.652
started at the tender age of 14.

0:00:42.652,0:00:46.808
I had this mad-teenage crush[br]on an older man,

0:00:46.808,0:00:49.107
and the older man in question[br]just happened to be

0:00:49.107,0:00:53.459
the then vice president[br]of the United States, Mr. Al Gore.

0:00:53.459,0:00:56.722
And I did what every single[br]teenage girl would want to do,

0:00:56.722,0:00:59.021
I wanted to somehow express[br]all of this love,

0:00:59.021,0:01:02.202
so I built him a website,[br]it's over here.

0:01:02.202,0:01:04.318
And in 2001, there was [br]no Tumblr,

0:01:04.318,0:01:06.591
there was no Facebook,[br]there was no Pinterest.

0:01:06.591,0:01:09.911
So I needed to learn to code[br]in order to express

0:01:09.911,0:01:12.279
all this longing and loving.

0:01:12.279,0:01:14.601
And that is how programming[br]started for me.

0:01:14.601,0:01:17.271
It started as a means[br]of self-expression.

0:01:17.271,0:01:20.731
Just like when I was smaller[br]and I would use crayons and legos

0:01:20.731,0:01:26.280
and when I was older I would use[br]guitar lessons and theater plays.

0:01:26.280,0:01:29.067
But then, there were other things [br]to get excited about,

0:01:29.067,0:01:31.714
like poetry and knitting socks[br]

0:01:31.714,0:01:34.871
and conjugating French irregular verbs

0:01:34.871,0:01:36.822
and coming up with[br]make-belief worlds

0:01:36.822,0:01:39.789
and Bertrand Russell and his philosophy.

0:01:39.789,0:01:41.725
And I started to be one[br]of those people

0:01:41.725,0:01:46.411
who felt that computers[br]are boring and technical and lonely.

0:01:46.411,0:01:48.640
Here's what I think today.

0:01:48.640,0:01:52.030
Little girls don't know that they are[br]not supposed to like computers.

0:01:52.030,0:01:53.377
Little girls are amazing.

0:01:53.377,0:01:57.670
They are really, really good [br]at concentrating on things

0:01:57.670,0:02:00.877
and being exact and they ask[br]amazing questions like,

0:02:00.877,0:02:03.245
"What?" and "Why?" and "How?"[br]and "What if?".

0:02:03.245,0:02:07.912
And they don't know that they[br]are not supposed to like computers.

0:02:07.912,0:02:09.932
It's the parents who do.

0:02:09.932,0:02:12.695
It's us parents who feel like[br]computer science

0:02:12.695,0:02:16.294
is this esoteric, weird[br]science discipline

0:02:16.294,0:02:19.963
that only belongs to the mystery makers.

0:02:19.963,0:02:22.679
That it's almost as far removed[br]from everyday life

0:02:22.679,0:02:25.373
as, say, nuclear physics.

0:02:25.373,0:02:27.787
And they are partly right about that.

0:02:27.787,0:02:31.363
There's a lot of syntax and controls[br]and data structures

0:02:31.363,0:02:33.425
and algorithms and practices,

0:02:33.425,0:02:36.425
protocols and paradigms in programming.

0:02:36.425,0:02:40.860
And we as a community, we've made[br]computers smaller and smaller.

0:02:40.860,0:02:44.820
We've built layers and layers[br]of abstraction on top of each other

0:02:44.820,0:02:46.850
between the man and the machine

0:02:46.850,0:02:50.333
to the point that we no longer[br]have any idea how computers work

0:02:50.333,0:02:52.492
or how to talk to them.

0:02:52.492,0:02:55.093
And we do teach our kids how[br]the human body works,

0:02:55.093,0:02:57.833
we teach them how [br]the combustion engine fuctions

0:02:57.833,0:03:01.068
and we even tell them that if[br]you want to really be an astronaut

0:03:01.068,0:03:02.722
you can become one.

0:03:02.722,0:03:04.814
But when the kid comes to us and asks,[br]

0:03:04.814,0:03:07.887
"So, what is a Bubble Sort algorithm?"

0:03:07.887,0:03:12.414
Or, "How does the computer know[br]what happens when I press 'play',

0:03:12.414,0:03:14.225
how does it know what video to show?"

0:03:14.225,0:03:16.896
Or, "Linda, is Internet a place?"

0:03:16.896,0:03:20.587
We adults, we grow oddly silent.

0:03:20.587,0:03:23.095
"It's magic," some of us say.

0:03:23.095,0:03:26.593
'It's too complicated," the others say.

0:03:26.593,0:03:28.319
Well, it's neither.

0:03:28.319,0:03:30.804
It's not magic and it's not complicated.

0:03:30.804,0:03:34.129
It all just happened really, [br]really, really fast.

0:03:34.129,0:03:37.282
Computer scientists built [br]these amazing, beautiful machines,

0:03:37.282,0:03:40.022
but they made them very, very[br]foreign to us,

0:03:40.022,0:03:42.270
and also the language we speak[br]to the computers

0:03:42.270,0:03:45.180
so that we don't know how [br]to speak to the computers anymore

0:03:45.180,0:03:47.545
without our fancy user interfaces.

0:03:47.545,0:03:49.335
And that's why no one[br]recognized

0:03:49.335,0:03:51.747
that when I was conjugating[br]French irregular verbs,

0:03:51.747,0:03:55.160
I was actually practicing[br]my pattern-recognition skills.

0:03:55.160,0:03:57.575
And when I was excited about knitting,

0:03:57.575,0:04:01.151
I actually was following a sequence[br]of symbolic commands

0:04:01.151,0:04:02.823
that included loops inside of them.

0:04:02.823,0:04:05.307
And that Bertrand Russell's[br]lifelong quest

0:04:05.307,0:04:09.231
to find an exact language[br]between English and mathematics

0:04:09.231,0:04:12.273
found its home inside [br]of a computer.

0:04:12.273,0:04:15.384
I was a programmer,[br]but no one knew it.

0:04:15.384,0:04:19.610
The kids of today, they tap, swipe[br]and pinch their way through the world.

0:04:19.610,0:04:22.884
But unless we give them tools [br]to build with computers,

0:04:22.884,0:04:26.854
we are raising only consumers[br]instead of creators.

0:04:26.854,0:04:29.501
This whole quest led me[br]to this little girl.

0:04:29.501,0:04:31.893
Her name is Ruby, she is six years old,

0:04:31.893,0:04:35.840
she is completely fearless,[br]imaginative and a little bit bossy.

0:04:35.840,0:04:38.320
And ever time I would run [br]into a problem

0:04:38.320,0:04:40.461
in trying to teach [br]myself programming like,

0:04:40.461,0:04:44.779
"What is object- oriented design[br]or what is garbage collection?"

0:04:44.779,0:04:49.214
I would try to imagine how a six-year-old[br]little girl would explain the problem.

0:04:49.214,0:04:51.722
And I wrote a book about her[br]and I illustrated it

0:04:51.722,0:04:54.110
and the things Ruby taught me[br]go like this.

0:04:54.110,0:04:56.505
Ruby told me that you're not[br]supposed to be afraid

0:04:56.505,0:04:58.154
of the bugs under your bed.

0:04:58.154,0:05:00.068
And even the biggest of the problems[br]

0:05:00.068,0:05:03.819
are a group of tiny problems [br]stuck together.

0:05:03.819,0:05:06.489
And Ruby also introduced[br]me to her friends,

0:05:06.489,0:05:09.299
the colorful side of the [br]Internet culture.

0:05:09.299,0:05:11.256
She has friends like the Snow Leopard,

0:05:11.256,0:05:14.452
who is beautiful but doesn't want[br]to play with the other kids.

0:05:14.452,0:05:16.420
And she has friends like[br]the green robots

0:05:16.420,0:05:18.935
that are really friendly but super messy.

0:05:18.935,0:05:21.154
And she has friends like Linux the penguin[br]

0:05:21.154,0:05:24.786
who's really ruthlessly efficient,[br]but somewhat hard to understand.

0:05:24.786,0:05:27.526
And idealistic foxes, and so on.

0:05:27.526,0:05:31.798
In Ruby's world, you learn [br]technology through play.

0:05:31.798,0:05:35.118
And, for instance, computers[br]are really good at repeating stuff,

0:05:35.118,0:05:37.812
so the way Ruby would teach[br]loops goes like this.

0:05:37.812,0:05:41.260
This is Ruby's favorite dance move,[br]it goes, "Clap, clap, stomp, stomp

0:05:41.260,0:05:43.358
clap, clap and jump."

0:05:43.358,0:05:46.890
You learn counter loops [br]by repeating that four times.

0:05:46.890,0:05:49.815
And you learn why while loops[br]by repeating that sequence

0:05:49.815,0:05:51.325
while I'm standing on one leg.

0:05:51.325,0:05:54.576
and you learn until loops[br]by repeating that sequence

0:05:54.576,0:05:56.918
until mom gets really mad.

0:05:56.918,0:05:57.773
(Laughter)

0:05:57.773,0:06:01.500
And most of all, you learn[br]that there are no ready answers.

0:06:01.500,0:06:05.094
When coming up with[br]the curriculum for Ruby's world,

0:06:05.094,0:06:08.391
I needed to really ask the kids[br]how they see the world

0:06:08.391,0:06:10.667
and what kind of questions they have

0:06:10.667,0:06:13.476
and I would organize[br]play testing sessions.

0:06:13.476,0:06:17.214
I would start by showing the kids[br]these four pictures.

0:06:17.214,0:06:19.072
I would show them a picture of a car,

0:06:19.072,0:06:21.742
a grocery store, a dog and a toilet.

0:06:21.742,0:06:25.736
And I would ask, "Which one of these[br]do you think is a computer?"

0:06:25.736,0:06:28.304
And the kids would be [br]very conservative and go,

0:06:28.304,0:06:30.194
"None of these is a computer[br]a computer.

0:06:30.194,0:06:33.143
I know that a computer is: it's that[br]glowing box

0:06:33.143,0:06:36.724
in front of which mom or dad spends[br]way too much time."

0:06:36.724,0:06:38.349
But then we would talk

0:06:38.349,0:06:41.316
and we would discover that actually,[br]a car is a computer,

0:06:41.316,0:06:43.405
it has a navigation system inside of it.

0:06:43.405,0:06:46.964
And a dog, a dog might not[br]be a computer, but it as a collar

0:06:46.964,0:06:50.348
and the collar might have [br]a computer inside of it.

0:06:50.348,0:06:53.831
And grocery stores, they have so many[br]different kinds of computers,

0:06:53.831,0:06:56.757
like the cashier system [br]and the burglar alarms.

0:06:56.757,0:06:59.088
And kids, you know what?

0:06:59.088,0:07:01.419
In Japan, toilets are computers[br]

0:07:01.419,0:07:03.679
and there's even hackers [br]who hack them.

0:07:03.679,0:07:06.733
And we go further and I give them[br]

0:07:06.733,0:07:08.923
these little stickers[br]with an on/off button.

0:07:08.923,0:07:13.085
And I tell them, "Today you have[br]this magic ability

0:07:13.085,0:07:16.241
to make anything in this room [br]into a computer."

0:07:16.241,0:07:19.113
And again, the kids go,[br]"Sounds really hard,

0:07:19.113,0:07:21.274
I don't know the right answer for this."

0:07:21.274,0:07:22.721
But I tell them, "Don't worry,[br]

0:07:22.721,0:07:25.071
your parents don't know [br]the right answer, either.

0:07:25.071,0:07:27.217
They've just started [br]to hear about this thing

0:07:27.217,0:07:29.565
called The Internet of Things."[br]

0:07:29.565,0:07:31.769
But you kids, you're are going [br]to be the ones

0:07:31.769,0:07:33.979
who really are going [br]to live up in a world

0:07:33.979,0:07:35.743
where everything is a computer.

0:07:35.743,0:07:38.063
And then I had this little girl[br]who came to me

0:07:38.063,0:07:39.386
and she took a bicycle lamp

0:07:39.386,0:07:43.635
and said, "If this bicycle lamp,[br]if it were a computer,

0:07:43.635,0:07:45.934
it would change colors."

0:07:45.934,0:07:48.929
And I said, "That's a really good idea,[br]what else could it do?"

0:07:48.929,0:07:50.578
And she thinks and she thinks,

0:07:50.578,0:07:54.711
and she goes, "If this bicycle lamp[br]were a computer,

0:07:54.711,0:07:57.451
we could go on a biking trip[br]with my father

0:07:57.451,0:08:00.469
and we could sleep in a tent[br]and this biking lamp

0:08:00.469,0:08:03.859
could also be a movie projector."

0:08:03.859,0:08:06.193
And that's the moment [br]I'm looking for,

0:08:06.193,0:08:08.190
the moment when the kid realizes[br]

0:08:08.190,0:08:10.430
that the world is [br]definitely not ready yet,

0:08:10.430,0:08:13.565
that a really awesome way[br]of making the world more ready

0:08:13.565,0:08:15.562
is by building technology

0:08:15.562,0:08:19.369
and that each one of us[br]can be a part of that change.

0:08:19.369,0:08:22.458
Final story, we also built a computer.

0:08:22.458,0:08:27.381
And we got to know the (?) [br]and the ?)

0:08:27.381,0:08:29.214
that help it remember things.

0:08:29.214,0:08:31.536
And after we've assembled[br]out computer together,

0:08:31.536,0:08:34.135
we also design an application for it.

0:08:34.135,0:08:36.273
And my favorite story[br]is this little boy,

0:08:36.273,0:08:37.480
he's six years old

0:08:37.480,0:08:39.175
and his favorite thing [br]in the world

0:08:39.175,0:08:41.358
is to be an astronaut.

0:08:41.358,0:08:43.564
And the boy, he has these huge[br]headphones on

0:08:43.564,0:08:46.675
and is completely immersed[br]in his tiny paper computer

0:08:46.675,0:08:48.563
because he's built his own[br]

0:08:48.563,0:08:53.153
intergalactic planetary navigation[br]application.

0:08:53.153,0:08:56.473
And his father, the lone astronaut[br]in the Martian orbit,

0:08:56.473,0:08:58.308
is on the other side of the room

0:08:58.308,0:08:59.957
and the boy's important mission[br]

0:08:59.957,0:09:03.067
is to bring the father[br]safely back to earth.

0:09:03.067,0:09:04.917
And these kids are going to have[br]

0:09:04.917,0:09:07.456
a profoundly different view[br]of the world.

0:09:07.456,0:09:11.009
and the way we build it with technology.

0:09:11.009,0:09:14.933
Finally, the more appraochable,[br]the more inclusive,

0:09:14.933,0:09:18.114
and the more diverse we make [br]the world of technology,

0:09:18.114,0:09:22.293
the more colorful and better[br]the world will look like.

0:09:22.293,0:09:24.894
So, imagine with me, for a moment,

0:09:24.894,0:09:27.657
a world where the stories we tell

0:09:27.657,0:09:29.491
about how things get made

0:09:29.491,0:09:32.881
don't only include the [br]20-something-year-old Silicon Valley boys,

0:09:32.881,0:09:38.407
but also Kenyan school girls [br]and Norwegian librarians.

0:09:38.407,0:09:42.401
Imagine a world where the little[br]Ada Lovelaces of tomorrow

0:09:42.401,0:09:45.303
who live in a permanent reality[br]of 1s and 0s,

0:09:45.303,0:09:50.527
they grow up to be very optimistic[br]and brave about technology.

0:09:50.527,0:09:53.742
They embrace the powers[br]and the opportunities

0:09:53.742,0:09:56.053
and the limitations of the world.

0:09:56.053,0:10:00.070
A word of technology that is [br]wonderful, whimsical,

0:10:00.070,0:10:02.440
and a tiny bit weird.

0:10:03.130,0:10:04.807
When I was a girl,

0:10:04.807,0:10:06.966
I wanted to be a storyteller.

0:10:06.966,0:10:08.476
I loved make-believe worlds

0:10:08.476,0:10:12.005
and my favorite thing to do[br]was to wake up in the mornings

0:10:12.005,0:10:14.141
in Morning Valley (?)

0:10:14.141,0:10:17.322
In the afternoons, I would[br]roam around the Tatooines,

0:10:17.322,0:10:20.884
and in the evenings, I would[br]go to sleep in Narnia,

0:10:21.594,0:10:25.936
And programming turned out [br]to be the perfect profession for me.

0:10:25.936,0:10:28.003
I still create worlds,

0:10:28.003,0:10:31.973
instead of stories, I do them with code.

0:10:31.973,0:10:34.852
Programming gives me this amazing power

0:10:34.852,0:10:38.660
to build my whole little universe [br]with its own rules

0:10:38.660,0:10:42.306
and paradigms and practices.

0:10:42.306,0:10:43.931
Create something out of nothing

0:10:43.931,0:10:46.551
with the pure power of logic.

0:10:46.551,0:10:48.000
Thank you.

0:10:48.000,0:10:50.600
(Applause)