How Indian girls are learning coding so 'swiftly' with Apple

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How Indian girls are learning coding so 'swiftly' with Apple

Swift is a robust and intuitive programming language created by Apple for building apps for iOS, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch

Monday February 3, 2020 11:23 AM, Nishant Arora, IANS

New Delhi: Ashita Dubey, a Class 4 student, is busy doing what Apple CEO Tim Cook has always envisioned for: Start early when it come to learn coding.

At an age when kids are busy listening to fairy tales, she is learning introductory Swift coding language at the Macro Vision Academy (MVA) which is an Apple Distinguished School in Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Swift is a robust and intuitive programming language created by Apple for building apps for iOS, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch. It is easy to use and open source, so anyone with an idea can create something incredible -- and girls at the Academy are right into the coding game.

"Learning on iPad is very exciting as I find it a great tool not only for fun but also to learn. From learning grammar lessons to coding, I am really enjoying the device and want to create apps for Apple App Store one day," says Ashita.

Girls from different classes are busy giving wings to their ideas on Swift language -- waiting for their transition from introductory coding to professional programming and create world-class apps for the Apple ecosystem as boys from senior classes at the Academy are already into.

Ashwati Mishra from Class 7 and Aditi Bangad from Class 9 are ecstatic to learn coding as developers aren't the only ones who've noticed the potential of Swift because 'everyone can code'.

According to Jalpa Seth, an Apple Distinguished Teacher from Oberoi International School in Mumbai, Swift as a coding language can be a great way to start the coding adventure.

"It is designed to help students build a solid foundation in programming language. It equips students with skills like communication, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration, essential in developing corollary areas such as Maths, literacy, problem solving, data analysis, physics and statistics, etc," explains Seth.

When Cook says a four-year degree is not necessary to be proficient at coding, he means it.

In a bid to empower women coders and creators, Apple has partnered with 'Girls Who Code', a US-based nonprofit organisation to create coding avenues for girls in the US.

Using the 'Everyone Can Code' curriculum, 90,000 girls and 'Girls Who Code' club facilitators in all 50 states can learn to use Apple's easy to learn programming language, Swift, (with which) hundreds of thousands of apps are built," according to the Cupertino-based iPhone maker.

Apple has also partnered the Malala Fund -- led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai -- to help 130 million girls get a safe, quality education.

Indian girls are not behind and you may see them representing the country at Apple's annual flagship Worldwide Developers' Conference (WWDC) in California and other big coding events soon.

These young girl coders are thrilled at the opportunity to learn new-age technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (Core ML) and Augmented Reality (AR) to build the next generation of apps that would make our life easy.

Students who quickly learn to code can see the connection between coding and storytelling.

"Coding not only enables young minds to think out-of-the-box but also stretches their minds in a way crucial to go beyond programming skills," says Seth.

(Nishant Arora can be reached at nishant.a@ians.in)

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