Microsoft #WeSpeakCode Event (Part 1)
On 23rd March Microsoft Hong Kong held the kickoff & media event of the #WeSpeakCode campaign at HKCCCU Logos Academy. It was really my great pleasure to be there and to be a part of it.
Shortly after the tutorial session, which was a huge success, we moved on to the next part: the media event. After the director of Legal and Corporate Affairs in Microsoft Hong Kong, Ms Winnie Yeung, had given some remarks about how the collaboration between Microsoft and code.org gave birth to this #WeSpeakCode event and how much effort Microsoft has been putting on to increase the interest of our younger generation in coding, she sat back on the chair next to me, which prompted the principal of this school, Dr. Paul Hee Chuen Cho, who was sitting beside her, to go out and tell us why he thought basic coding skills would be a crucial thing for this age of technology and how much he thought his students could benefit from this coding tutorials, which led to all of us sitting there.
And then here came the toughest part, a "chit-chat session". Basically all I needed to do was to answer a bunch of questions alongside with Mr. William Chan (the CEO of a company in Hong Kong called Big Dipper) from the emcee, like why we think coding is fun, or why coding is important, or how it could make our life easier, how we ended up diving into the majestic oceans of programming. A staff from Microsoft, Ms Sonki Sheung, had already prepped me about this a couple days ago, but I still had a panic attack. I couldn't resist but keep looping that Linkin Park song Waiting For The End in my mind (my mouth kept moving but my mind went dead... ) cause that's basically what I did the whole time. I shared my first coding experience, which is the coding project I did back in secondary school using Pascal and I confessed how I made my life easier at work by writing code to generate an excel file jotting down the data from the tests I wrote and designed for my colleagues. I got a few laughs, which means people were paying attention to me, things were looking good, until I started to put my foot in my mouth. I gave a shallow comparison between TouchDevlop and what I've been using (Visual Studio, Free Pascal...). Literally I just dragged everything I could think of into that mess. Mr.Chan, on the other hand, had done a much much better job than me. He gave a short introduction on what his company's been working on, which is about virtual reality and gadgets using Kinect. And there's a claim he'd made pretty clear, he said that in future there would only be 2 kinds of jobs, with the first one being jobs related to I.T. (of course!), and the other being jobs struggling under the impact of I.T. I wouldn't say if he's right or wrong, I'm still trying to make up my mind. The dynamic of the technology environment changes all the time and it's different in different countries. If you have watched that HBO sit-com Silicon Valley, you will know that the vibe of I.T. development, even in America, is not very healthy. Mr.Chan's claim had also stirred quite a debate between my colleagues (all are engineers), and between my friends (university students from different major studies like engineering, business and medical studies). I would say this claim is still debatable, and he might not be wrong.
After these 10 embarrassing minutes, all of us gathered for some group photos, which marked a great ending to this afternoon. And when I thought everything was over, I got dragged back into the seat to give interviews to the reporters there. Since I was really like a person who was just tagging along with all those extraordinary people, I didn't have much to say, here or there. But the reporters still handed me their business cards out of politeness, a gesture which I really appreciated. And after the interview, I got dragged by another Microsoft staff to help film a short video by saying "We Speak Code!" in front of the camera. I hope the video will come out shortly so I can show it to you guys.
After everything's over, I went back to CUHK to join the last English Table this semester, which would also be the host Virginia's last. Thank you for making the English Table these 2 years so awesome!
Many thanks for Ms Eleanor Leung for the invitation.
The first part of the event was a tutorial session, where students there were taught Hour of Code or TouchDevelop, according to everyone's capability and age. Instead of holding the session as a tutor like usual, I stepped down to be the assistant for the I.T. teacher there, Mr. Eric Chan. That was a really great opportunity, cause so I had more chance and time to observe more about some common problems the kids had been struggling in coding and learn more teaching skills from a professional!
Shortly after the tutorial session, which was a huge success, we moved on to the next part: the media event. After the director of Legal and Corporate Affairs in Microsoft Hong Kong, Ms Winnie Yeung, had given some remarks about how the collaboration between Microsoft and code.org gave birth to this #WeSpeakCode event and how much effort Microsoft has been putting on to increase the interest of our younger generation in coding, she sat back on the chair next to me, which prompted the principal of this school, Dr. Paul Hee Chuen Cho, who was sitting beside her, to go out and tell us why he thought basic coding skills would be a crucial thing for this age of technology and how much he thought his students could benefit from this coding tutorials, which led to all of us sitting there.
And then here came the toughest part, a "chit-chat session". Basically all I needed to do was to answer a bunch of questions alongside with Mr. William Chan (the CEO of a company in Hong Kong called Big Dipper) from the emcee, like why we think coding is fun, or why coding is important, or how it could make our life easier, how we ended up diving into the majestic oceans of programming. A staff from Microsoft, Ms Sonki Sheung, had already prepped me about this a couple days ago, but I still had a panic attack. I couldn't resist but keep looping that Linkin Park song Waiting For The End in my mind (my mouth kept moving but my mind went dead... ) cause that's basically what I did the whole time. I shared my first coding experience, which is the coding project I did back in secondary school using Pascal and I confessed how I made my life easier at work by writing code to generate an excel file jotting down the data from the tests I wrote and designed for my colleagues. I got a few laughs, which means people were paying attention to me, things were looking good, until I started to put my foot in my mouth. I gave a shallow comparison between TouchDevlop and what I've been using (Visual Studio, Free Pascal...). Literally I just dragged everything I could think of into that mess. Mr.Chan, on the other hand, had done a much much better job than me. He gave a short introduction on what his company's been working on, which is about virtual reality and gadgets using Kinect. And there's a claim he'd made pretty clear, he said that in future there would only be 2 kinds of jobs, with the first one being jobs related to I.T. (of course!), and the other being jobs struggling under the impact of I.T. I wouldn't say if he's right or wrong, I'm still trying to make up my mind. The dynamic of the technology environment changes all the time and it's different in different countries. If you have watched that HBO sit-com Silicon Valley, you will know that the vibe of I.T. development, even in America, is not very healthy. Mr.Chan's claim had also stirred quite a debate between my colleagues (all are engineers), and between my friends (university students from different major studies like engineering, business and medical studies). I would say this claim is still debatable, and he might not be wrong.
Many thanks for Ms Eleanor Leung for the invitation.
Microsoft #WeSpeakCode Event (Part 1)
Reviewed by Kevin Lai
on
8:15:00 PM
Rating:
Reviewed by Kevin Lai
on
8:15:00 PM
Rating:
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