During Monday’s White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Tim Cook pushed for the U.S. government to make coding a required class for kids.
This is something Cook has publicly discussed before. When Apple debuted its kid-focused Swift Playgrounds app, he said, “We believe coding should be a required language in all schools.”
Apple’s push for coding in schools also led to a new Swift curriculum that will be adopted by six community college systems, serving nearly 500,000 students, this fall. No doubt more will follow.
According to Axios, Cook was set to raise four points during Monday’s meeting: disagreeing that immigration drives down wages, arguing in favor of strong encryption, flying the flag for veteran rights, and discussing human rights more generally. It’s not clear how much these points got raised during the high-level tech confab.
Also in the meeting on Monday, Trump called for a “sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology” program. Following the meeting, Trump said the government had to “catch up” with the private sector, in everything from services for citizens to stronger defense from cyber attacks.
This was the first meeting of the White House’s American Technology Council, which will see the Trump administration work alongside tech companies to bring federal bureaucracy up-to-date with the latest technology.
“Government needs to catch up with the technology revolution,” Trump said. “We’re going to change that with the help of great American businesses like the people assembled.”
A tough relationship
Cook (and much of the rest of Silicon Valley) has so far enjoyed a turbulent relationship with Trump. Earlier this year, Cook criticized Trump’s executive order limiting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. More recently, he spoke out about Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
From the sound of things, all parties involved in Monday’s meeting are happy to overlook political differences if it means that shared progress can be made.
What do you think of Trump’s renewed alliance with Silicon Valley? Leave your comments below.
Source: Recode
