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Apple CEO Tim Cook pushes for mandatory coding requirement at Trump administration tech summit

This is sort of nifty.

On Monday, at a technology summit with President Donald Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly suggested making programming a mandatory subject in the country’s schools.

Cook, who was among other tech executives, was among the representatives for the first gathering of the White House’s American Technology Council. Over the course of the meeting, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos suggested making more use of commercial technology, while Palantir CEO Alex Karp pointed to ways “big data” could be used to catch fraudulent federal spending. Palantir specializes in large-scale data analysis.


The American Technology Council, led by Trump advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, was formed in May with the mission statement to “transform and modernize” government in the use of IT and digital services. Other firms represented at the meeting included the heads of Adobe, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, and Qualcomm as well as investor Peter Thiel.

Notably absent was Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who withdrew his support after the Trump administration backed out of the Paris Climate Accord. Cook, as well as other CEOs, backed the accord but remained on the advisory board.

Cook has also voiced opposition to Trump on issues like immigration and LGBT rights, but argued that he should exert influence instead of boycotting the White House.

Cook and Apple have regularly called for programming to be taught in schools. Last month the company in fact put a free Swift curriculum on iBooks, which will also be brought to some colleges and high schools.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Via AppleInsider and Recode