Microsoft pushes for a future-ready Asia Pacific, backs youth education

IN AN effort to close the digital skills gap, Microsoft has kicked off Future Ready, an annual initiative run in partnership with nonprofits and schools to generate interest amongst students to learn computer science and empower teachers with skills to teach computer science.

Launched in conjunction with Computer Science Education Week, Microsoft empowers close to 700,000 youth — particularly from underserved communities — with opportunities to pursue their passion in computer science and more than 26,000 educators to teach high-quality and inclusive computer science across Asia Pacific over the next year.

“Microsoft believes that education is essential to personal and country-wide economic growth,” said Attorney Raul Cortez, Corporate External & Legal Affairs director of Microsoft Philippines. “We are keen on extending necessary help needed by educators to ignite students’ interest in computer science. Computational thinking allows the youth to gain technical knowledge and develop creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills — essential attributes for the jobs of tomorrow.”

Future Ready aims to increase access to computer science as Microsoft drives workshops for 2,000 educators to teach them how to facilitate engaging and inclusive computer science classes to more than 200,000 youth.

For the fourth year in a row, Microsoft has partnered with Code.org to provide young people the opportunity to learn the basics of coding through its game-based learning program, Minecraft Hour of Code Tutorial: Voyage Aquatic.

Beyond an hour of code is the Asia Pacific’s Next Top Coder, a free online competition led by Empire Code in partnership with Microsoft and Lenovo. Students between the ages of 13 and 19 created a Minecraft world enhanced with code that reflects a period of time in history, using Minecraft: Education Edition and Microsoft MakeCode for Minecraft.

“Digital transformation in our classrooms allows us to achieve a future-ready workforce,” said Mr. Cortez. “Future Ready aims to achieve three objectives: introducing the basics of computer science, providing hands-on coding experience, and facilitating access to role models who help connect in-class experiences to real-world concepts.”

Microsoft, through its latest collaboration with Gawad Kalinga, empowers the community through providing cash grants and technologies to build the capacity of nonprofits to teach high-quality computer science education to underserved youth via its digital skills program.