In search of the next Bill Gates: Microsoft's new high-school offer

Microsoft says high-school students will get free access to its software-development tools under an expansion of the company's "DreamSpark" program, previously limited to college students. Products available include Microsoft's Visual Studio, XNA Game Studio, Expression Studio, Robotics Developer Studio and others.

"I think we see now an opportunity for many high-school kids to use these better tools to express themselves in these new ways, even if they don't yet know that they want to grow up and be Bill Gates, or don't think of it that way yet," said Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, in a phone interview from the company's Government Leaders Forum outside Washington, D.C.

Wait a second, is the idea to get students using Microsoft's tools as kids so that they're more likely to stick with them as adults?

"Well, that would always be nice, but I think that there's an equal motive here to just recognize that if they're using any good tools at all they're more likely to have a good experience than not," Mundie said in response. "And it's as important to us that they grow up believing that they know how to do these things. And of course, yeah, it would be great if they have a brand preference, too. But I wouldn't say in this case that's the primary motive."

The company is touting the expanded DreamSpark program as part of its broader effort to stimulate education and economic development, including its Elevate America worker retraining program. Its existing software development programs for kids include the Kodu visual programming system. Mundie hinted that Microsoft may go even further than the current DreamSpark program in its efforts to introduce students to programming early in life.

"Personally, I'm interested in seeing this extend even further down ... at the earliest ages where kids start to get exposed to gaming, to online services, to social networking," he said. "They will think about it at those earlier stages less that they're learning about computer programming and more about that they just want to get something done, but it's that exposure that I think will be critical in the long term."

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was among the speakers yesterday at the Microsoft conference, urging technology companies to use their positions and expertise to address global problems as AIDS, hunger and climate change. Bill Gates and Mundie are scheduled to speak at the event this morning.

 

READ MORE and COMMENT, ... http://link.gs/lCTF