Australia has a long, proud history of invention. Bright, inquisitive Australians are fond of asking themselves “how could I make the world better, and people’s lives easier?”. From these questions have sprung inventions from the boomerang to Wifi to Google Maps.
In the past, invention was possible with a can-do attitude and a healthy disregard for the impossible. But in the future, we will need to add one new ingredient to this mix - the ability to code.
Future invention and innovation across every sector will have technology and computational thinking at their heart. Computational thinking is not just a fancy way of saying “think like a computer”. It’s an approach to problem solving that sits at the heart of computer science, and can unlock huge potential across all industries. Computational thinking underpins the belief that today’s computing powers will be able to tackle a variety of problems in new ways. For example, scientists looking for cures won’t solely rely on the lab and test tube. They’ll crunch masses of data, looking for patterns and answers and applying new problem solving approaches - and that will require computational thinking!
We want to see Australia’s young people make the most of these opportunities, and combine their area of passion with coding skills to step into exciting future jobs in everything from medicine to manufacturing to movies. That’s why we’re launching a new campaign and website, Start with Code, to inspire our inventors of the future to arm themselves with coding skills today. It’s full of resources for parents, teachers, and students, to help people take their first coding steps. And we’ll add to it over time as we partner with more organisations in Australia who share our belief in Australia’s bright tech future.
We’ve also put together a book of stories about the people who are doing great things in coding and entrepreneurship today. Australia’s Innovation Generation profiles 10 Australians making waves here and abroad thanks to their big thinking and creative approaches.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if the next Tesla Motors, iRobots, Twitters and Googles were founded in Australia? We believe that, with the right attitude to skills and innovation, we can create an Australia of new, high-value jobs, and in doing so, create a bright future for our talented young people. The first step? Start with code.
Posted by Alan Noble, Engineering Director, Google Australia