Small computer for children to avoid future engineer shortage "Micro Bit"

Everyone is using PCs and smartphones and technology is full of society, while the demand of engineers who learned programming is increasing all over the world, children of young people, especially junior high school students and high school students, It is pointed out that there is no opportunity to study and the possibility of falling into engineer shortage in the future. In order to avoid the shortage of engineers that will be visited in the future, British national broadcast BBC is developing a pocket size computer to teach programming at school.

BBC Micro Bit computer's final design revealed - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33409311

The BBC micro: bit - Microsoft Research
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/microbit/

A nonprofit organization aiming to promote computer science "Code.org"Demand for programmers is expected to increase steadily, and it is estimated that 1.20 million programmers will be needed in 2020. On the other hand, as it stands, the number of programmers who can exist in 2020 is estimated to be about 400,000, and it is estimated that about 1 million programmers will be short in the US alone.


President Obama, who emphasized the problem about engineer shortage, told the American people, "Learning computer science is important not only for you but for the future of the country"TalkingMicrosoft's former CEO Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg complains the importance of computer science.

Mr. Gates and Mr. Zuckerberg can confirm the importance of computer science from the following movies.

What Most Schools Do not Teach - YouTube


Under such circumstances, BBC, which is a national broadcast of Britain, is developing a 4 x 5 cm pocket-sized computer called "Micro Bit" for children in the UK in collaboration with Microsoft. Micro Bit has 25 LED lights on the back, children can learn the lighting pattern of LEDs by programming, and learn the basics of the code by lighting letters and numbers with LEDs .

Also, since motion sensors and buttons are also installed, it is considered to be a tool to develop something like a game controller. Furthermore, it can connect to Raspberry Pi and Arduino and use it for more complicated programming. Teaching children through programming via Micro Bit is a teacher at a junior high school, but we will be teaching under support from organizations that promote programming such as ScienceScope and the Wellcome Trust.


In October 2015, the BBC will distribute 1 million Micro Bits for free to children aged 11 and 12. In addition to distributing it for free, it is said that sales outside the UK will start within 2015. In Japan junior high school students learning programming mostly receive specialized schools and courses, there are few junior high schools that incorporate programming classes, so if Micro - Bit succeeds in the UK, schools that will be adopted in Japan There is a possibility that it will come out, and I want to expect it.