Computer Science News

2009-10-27 11:03:21

US Congress Approves CS Education Week

The Association of Computing Machinery announced on October 21st that the organization is working with US Representatives Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) and Jared Polis (D-CO) to declare the week of December 7 as "National Computer Science Education Week." The article, available at http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/cs-education-week/view, provides statements by noted computing leaders such as Rick Rashid, Senior Vice President of Research for Microsoft Corporation, as well as Alfred Spector, Vice President of Research and Special Initiatives at Google, Inc.

The first week in December was chosen, according to ACM, to honor Grace M. Hopper, one of the outstanding pioneers in the field. She was born on December 9, 1906. Hopper engineered new programming languages and standards for computer systems. These innovations laid the foundation for many advances in computer science from the 1940s into the 1970s. In 1971, ACM established the Grace Murray Hopper Award, which recognizes outstanding young computer professionals on the basis of recent major technical or service contributions.