First Code Academy
First code Academy was founded by Michelle. She was born and raised in Hong Kong, and graduated from University of Chicago and began her career at Goldman Sachs. She also attended the inaugural class of Hackbright Academy, an intensive program in San Francisco on software development. During her career, she held various roles in high growth startups in the Silicon Valley, including Buffer, a tool that helps people share smarter on social media and Bump Technologies (acquired by Google in 2013).
More information can be found on their website.
“First Code Academy develops and runs computer programming courses and holiday camps specially designed for kids and teens in Hong Kong and Singapore. Our mission is to empower our next generation to be creators using technology.” – First Code Academy
“Every day at First Code I work on a variety of different tasks including product development, teacher training, parent communication, and of course, teaching! I feel incredibly lucky to be able to combine my passion in technology and the endless inspiration from the kids we teach. When I’m not at office, you can likely find me trying out new recipes in my kitchen, reading a book or doing TRX in a park.” – Michelle, Founder & CEO
Guest Speaker – Greg Sung
Now this is what I would like to see … more people like Greg supporting local schools to help kids develop their programming and software development skills. Yes, I believe ALL schools need our help to develop our future innovators.
“Greg founded aNobii, a social networking website for book lovers in 2006. aNobii was initially a side project to scratch Greg’s own itch of finding others in town who have read the very same book he’s just finished reading. In 2010, aNobii was acquired by HMV and three of the Big Six book publishers in the UK. Currently, Greg is the cofounder & CEO of Onesky. OneSky makes localization simple to companies that seek to bring their apps to international markets. It has helped over 1,000+ companies with their localization, including Airbnb, Tumblr and 500px.”
Guest Speaker – Becky Mak
Google is trying to penetrate the educational sector by launching CS First – A online tutorial platform for kids, to help future generation of kids to develop their programming and coding skills. We didn’t get the chance to interview Becky, but she was kind enough to give me her email address (whatever happened to swapping phone number these days?) …We’ll be in touch!
“Becky is currently at Google, where she partners with large advertisers to develop their digital marketing strategies. In addition to her core role, she also leads the Hong Kong launch of Google CS First, a free online coding tutorial platform for kids. Prior to joining Google, she received her B.A. in International Development and Communication Design from Washington University in St Louis. She is always looking for ways to leverage the intersection of design, technology, and storytelling to make positive impact in the world, and is thrilled to be speaking at AppJamming Summit 2016.”
