Calling young programmers!

I've been following Tom Friedman's writing about this flat world of ours for some time as a separate interest from kid-tech news, but today there's a point of intersection in his New York Times column that parents of tech-literate kids might want to see. Tom quotes a CNET commentary: "The University of Illinois tied for 17th place in the world finals of the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest ... the lowest ranking for the top-performing US school in the 29-year history of the competition." A Chinese university took top honors, followed by Moscow State and the St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. David Patterson, president of the Association for Computing Machinery and a computer science professor at University of California, Berkeley, said that, though the US "used to dominate these kinds of programming Olympics," it hasn't won a world championship since 1997. Bill Gates has been making a similar point when speaking about US education in various locations, as have other tech executives. This spells opportunity for aspiring programmers and other technologists. Many of our children have never known life without the Internet - a whole generation of Americans soon to add their vision and skills to global competitions and the amazing innovation going on in Russia, India, China, and so many other countries that Tom says are now competing on a level playing field.