Until last year, Jeremy Mellema was a history teacher. Now, he's teaching computer programming. When I visited his class in the Bronx this month, he had 30 students with 30 MacBooks, completing exercises in Python. They had just finished a lesson on data types, and now they were tackling variables. In Jeremy's class, the first variable assignment is:

tupac = "Greatest of All Time!!"

Computer Science for All

A year ago, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced Computer Science for All, an $80 million public-private partnership. The goal is to teach computer science to every student at every public school. But first, the schools need curricula and 5000 teachers need training.

Here at MongoDB, our VP of Education Shannon Bradshaw oversees MongoDB University, which trains IT professionals to use MongoDB. When he heard about CS4All, he wanted us to contribute. He proposed that we set aside budget for two paid fellowships, and recruit public school teachers to spend the summer with us. We would develop them as teachers, and help build curricula they could take back into schools this fall. MongoDB staff would share our expertise, our office space, our equipment, and the MongoDB software itself.

Shannon pitched his proposal to the company like this: "As many of us know, it’s still unusual for students to encounter computer science, let alone databases, in their classrooms before entering college. I believe this absence directly contributes to the gender and racial disparity we see today across our industry." The CS4All project improves access to these subjects for many more students in our city, and MongoDB could be part of it from the beginning.