DigiGirlz and Hour of Code

Today is Take Your Child to Work day. Well… when I’m not traveling, I work in my basement office. The kids spend plenty of time down there in general, have attended many a conference call, and have seen their fair share of code and whiteboarding.

So today, we switched things up a bit, and I took my two daughters (young teens) to a local DigiGirlz event at Microsoft Store.

The two-hour event was split: An hour of DigiGirlz, and an Hour of Code. The former was keynoted by a 15-year Microsoft veteran, and they had a great discussion about tech, passion, and, well… girl power. During the second hour, the girls went through the Minecraft code exercise, and built code blocks to help their character navigate through the Minecraft world.

The girls all received student discount cards and earbuds. Swag is always good!

For me, the rewarding part was after the event, when I got to listen to my daughters ramble on about how valuable they thought the event was. My older daughter walked away with a better appreciation for what coding actually is. My younger one though: She’s ready to Do Something Great. And if it weren’t for this being a school night, she’d already be working on another Hour of Code.

Thanks to Microsoft (and the Bethesda, MD Microsoft Store for sponsoring this event. If you have kids, seriously consider the Hour of Code events. And if your kids are girls, DigiGirlz is a great option as well.

And thanks to my daughters who spent some geek time with me this evening.

PS - My son wasn’t left out of the mix: I’m taking him to a coding competition tomorrow.

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