Several Birmingham officials will visit Chicago this week to learn more about an Apple initiative that teaches teenagers coding skills in the classroom that they can later use in the workforce.

"This is an exploratory visit that could lead to a possible partnership between Apple and Birmingham," said Rick Journey, director of communications for the Birmingham mayor's office. "We're excited by Apple's level of interest in this opportunity by providing significant staff time to the delegation over the next few days."

Mayor Randall Woodfin and others will visit with Apple employees, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago and others to learn more about Apple's Everyone Can Code program, which expanded to Chicago's nearly 500,000 students this spring.

Other city leaders traveling include Kelvin Datcher, director of intergovernmental affairs; Ed Fields, senior advisor; and Josh Carpenter, director of economic development. Administrators from Lawson State Community College and others are also expected to visit with Apple employees in Chicago this week.

City officials are also expected to meet with Alabama native and Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook as he is scheduled to be in Birmingham on Wednesday. Cook will be in the Magic City to meet with Birmingham area students and receive a human rights award from Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Apple already partners with Lawson State. The college provides certification training for app developers through the Swift App Development Program.

The program provides instruction and training on coding and designing apps. The first course in the curriculum is offered at the Bessemer and Birmingham campus.

Carpenter said the city wants to see how it can expand on the existing partnerships Apple has in Alabama. He said Everyone Can Code would diversify the IT pool in the workforce pipeline in Birmingham.

Apple's Everyone Can Code program in Chicago is a collaborative effort between Mayor's Office of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago, local businesses and non-profit organizations.

Everyone Can Code is designed to teach students how to code and prepares them for today's workplace. Students learn Swift, Apple's easy-to-learn programming language.

"At Apple we believe coding is an essential skill, so we've designed Everyone Can Code to give everyone the power to learn, write and teach coding," Cook said in a December statement.

Chicago Public Schools offer Swift Coding Clubs, which bring coding education to after-school programs. These clubs guide students through key coding concepts, introduce them to Swift and walk them through an app design and prototyping project.

Chicago business partners in the program will offer more than 100 internships to high school and college students who have completed the Everyone Can Code curriculum.