(Co-) Founder: Hadi Partovi
Hadi Partovi was born and grew up in Tehran, Iran, and immigrated to the United States where his self-taught computer programming skills helped pay his way through college. Later, he graduated from Harvard with a Masters in CS, and started work with Microsoft. Hadi has been an early advisor and investor in ventures such as Facebook, Dropbox, airbnb, and Uber. He currently sits on the boards of Axon and Convoy. Further, he launched two start-ups, Tellme and iLike, before founding Code.org in 2013 with his twin brother, Ali Partovi.
Venture: Code.org
Code.org is a non-profit organization whose vision is to bring computer science to k-12 students in classrooms around the globe through the activities that they offer on their website. Currently, Code.org provides several computer programming activities; some of which use a block-based programming language called “Blockly”, some use text-based programming languages, and others use “unplugged” exercises to teach coding concepts without a computer. Other aspects of student activities include teaching students how computers work and are used. One final aspect of their venture is the creation of Hour of Code, whereby students in their classrooms participate in an hour long coding activity. I have used several of Code.org’s wonderful activities in my computer science class to deliver computer programming and related lessons to my students in a fun, interactive way.
Team
Code.org has a strong leadership team that covers positions such as chief technology officer, director of people ops, chief academic officer, and several more; I’m impressed with the titles mostly. Their board also has a variety of backgrounds from mathematicians, philanthropists, university professors, to treasurers and anywhere in between and beyond. Finally, and perhaps most importantly for Code.org, is the addition of diversity advisors that ensure that the organization focuses on inclusion of underrepresented groups in computer science: young women and marginalized racial and ethnic groups.
Code.org is an excellent web based coding site. The amount of levelled material is excellent. For the simple coding aspects I have taught it from grades 1 up to grade 9, however they also have entire unit plans for those who want to look at app development and other higher level computer science. The students also enjoy the wide variety of themes, as they keep them relevant to what is popular at the time, so students have an immediate connection and become engaged. The variety also helps with the engagement, as learners can connect with characters from Frozen to making a dance party with recent music. Code.org also connects regularly with the instructors, reaching out when new activities are released and just keeping in touch. I know last week a few people talked about investing time, me included, and n my opinion, if you are going to invest time into coding code.org is worth that investment.
I think Hadi Partovi is a great role model for would-be entrepreneurs. His leadership skills are evident in his ability to assemble such a strong, diverse team (his employees are experts in a variety of fields and many are from underrepresented groups in computer science). I also admire the fact that his venture is motivated out of a passion for computer science, rather than capital; a passion which shines through his highly engaging student-centered activities and desire to teach children computer programming.
Since its inception in 2013, code.org has seen tremendous growth and has become a household name in many schools and Education fields. Hadi Partovi has also effectively used ‘Hour of Code’ (https://youtu.be/mFPg96gdPkc)
to raise awareness of coding and computer science worldwide.