Salesforce Highlights from Computer Science Education Week

At Salesforce.org, we aim to help underrepresented young people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and education levels build a pathway to a 21st century career. We know that exposure to STEM early on has the potential to engage students in new opportunities. In fact, according to Code.org, in the U.S., women who try AP Computer Science in high school are ten times more likely to major in it in college, and Black and Hispanic students are seven times more likely. In 2016, female participation increased by 25%, and underrepresented minority participation increased by 38%. Yet, the gap still looms large as only 22% of total high school students taking CS classes are female, and only 13% are Black/African American or Hispanic/Latino.

This is one reason that we take part in Computer Science Education Week (CS Ed Week); a global STEM initiative started by partner organization, Code.org, to connect employees with volunteer opportunities helping young people to learn about computer science, and moreover, the world of tech.

Last year, volunteers focused primarily on Code.org’s “Hour of Code” program, which included themed lessons like Star Wars, Disney’s Frozen, and Minecraft. This year, we’ve gone a step further to offer more than just coding; our employees taught robotics lessons, led gaming workshops, held career panels, and even showed students how our learning platform, Trailhead, works and how they can create apps of their own for free!

Here are some of the highlights from CS Ed Week:

– In San Francisco, Salesforce Co-Founder, Parker Harris and his team visited their adopted school, Visitacion Valley Middle School, to lead Moana Hour of Code and Minecraft Hour of Code sessions. Check out the news clip.

– At Bessie Carmichael PK-8, a group of preschoolers were taught computer programming basics with Kibo robots led by Google’s Distinguished Engineer Carrie Grimes Bostock and Salesforce volunteers.

– In Oakland, CA, United for Success Academy students joined Salesforce volunteers in a Flappy Bird coding activity from Code.org. Also, Dan Darcy, Senior Vice President of Productivity, helped students from West Oakland Middle School tackle game development and design with the PocketCHIP device from partner org, NextThing.co.

– In Texas, third graders from a class where Program Architect, Raji Abraham, volunteered were already using Code.org programming and Scratch, and a sixth-grade class was into Python and Javascript.

– In Atlanta, a class of 27 sophomore, junior, and senior students got to grill a panel of Salesforce employee volunteers on their career path, and then they completed an Hour of Code activity from Codesters.com.

– In Japan, employee volunteers organized a “Sphero ” training with STEM partner CANVAS, and 30 employees attended.

– In Dublin, Ireland, a group of students completed their final CoderDojo class, with employee volunteers as mentors.

– In Sydney, Australia, 30 employees planned more than 6 events for 164 students, half of which were female. Activities included Trailhead sessions, industry exposure and career sessions, Hour of Code, and building Christmas decorations with Arduino boards.