Amazon To Expand Its Childhood-To-Career CS Program To India Later This Year 43
theodp writes: According to an Amazon job listing for a contract position, the e-tailer is seeking a lead for a new Amazon Future Engineer program in India that's set to launch in 2021. "The initial research for Amazon Future Engineer in India," Amazon explains, "is currently underway and we look to the chosen candidate to dive deep into operationalizing the program to what is relevant for India and the student needs. The role involves working with local non-profits and government officials to deeply understand the needs of the students. They will utilize this research and feedback to build trust and implement a unique program addressing needs for different aged students, childhood to career. They will quickly diagnose any structural barriers with CS education policy/adoption by region, while also exercising a bias for action to get programs launched in 2021. This role will require strategic planning, ability to manage a budget and implement programs at a large scale."
In its press release celebrating record-breaking holiday sales in 2020, Amazon on Monday pointed out that its Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) program more than doubled its reach in the U.S. during the pandemic and is now serving more than 5,000 schools and 550,000 students in need with computer science coursework, largely by providing access to online courses from Edhesive.
Launched in 2018 with the goal of inspiring 10+ million kids each year to explore CS, Amazon explained that AFE is part of a $50 million commitment it made to CS and STEM education in 2017. Microsoft President Brad Smith later revealed in his 2019 book Tools and Weapons that the $50 million investments in CS+STEM education that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Salesforce each committed to in 2017 were part of a $300 million private sector pledge that Smith indicated was needed to get Ivanka Trump to persuade her father to fund K-12 CS; the President ultimately issued an Executive Order requiring the U.S. Dept. of Education to spend $1 billion on K-12 CS+STEM education.
In its press release celebrating record-breaking holiday sales in 2020, Amazon on Monday pointed out that its Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) program more than doubled its reach in the U.S. during the pandemic and is now serving more than 5,000 schools and 550,000 students in need with computer science coursework, largely by providing access to online courses from Edhesive.
Launched in 2018 with the goal of inspiring 10+ million kids each year to explore CS, Amazon explained that AFE is part of a $50 million commitment it made to CS and STEM education in 2017. Microsoft President Brad Smith later revealed in his 2019 book Tools and Weapons that the $50 million investments in CS+STEM education that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Salesforce each committed to in 2017 were part of a $300 million private sector pledge that Smith indicated was needed to get Ivanka Trump to persuade her father to fund K-12 CS; the President ultimately issued an Executive Order requiring the U.S. Dept. of Education to spend $1 billion on K-12 CS+STEM education.
In the Before-Times (Score:4, Interesting)
Midshipmen (Score:2)
Perhaps more like 10 year olds pressed and shanghai'd into the british navy? It wasn't a bad life entrirely compared to many others
Re: Midshipmen (Score:2)
He should get on to those medeival church ideas then:
Can't make children without "marriage".
Can't marry without being being approved by the church.
Can't be approved without being "christened".
Can't be "christened" without being an obedient "believer" serf.
Ergo: Only their livestock is allowed to breed. Eveyone else must die.
Aka: Literal eugentics.
I bet Bezos wishes he could "get em" even before they are born.
Re: (Score:2)
I was about to make a similar point. It's interesting - in a bad way - to see corporations, and especially tech corporations, doing their level best to implement a world-wide caste system. How sickeningly appropriate that this story takes place in India.
Re: (Score:2)
How does allowing people to get a computer science education create a caste system?
Tempted (Score:2)
As an educator in China, I am tempted. The world of Computer Science is a vast landscape. However lumping CS in with STEM is a misnomer. If you code for Facebook or Tiktok or virtually any other mainstream project, do you believe you should be considered STEM? It's bullshit. Coding is like the glue of the modern world. Caparenters never considered their work so influential. Yet this is the world we live in.
The work if these companies is not altruistic. They do it out ofof a need. Teach Chinese, teach
Re: Tempted (Score:4, Insightful)
Three bricklayers joke (Score:2)
You got me to look at the AC troll AKA loser. No thanks to you. Only reason to play with a troll is if it's a lose-lose game and you have a guaranteed lose-less strategy.
However, you did remind me of a favorite joke that can be pressed to fit the topic:
The joker was walking around town and he saw three bricklayers. He decided to ask them what they were doing. The first bricklayer explained how he put some mortar on the next brick and stuck it in the next gap. The second bricklayer explained about building a
Re: Tempted (Score:2)
Maybe he can tell that to one of the, the next time he needs, I don't know, a functioning *house*! ^^
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Tempted (Score:1)
PROTIP: OP is trolling. (Score:2)
"Educstor from China".
Come on!
Childhood-to-career education (Score:2)
for improved cradle-to-grave wage slavery.
And I get the chills, while reading the topic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to be clear I also read the job description but the chills stayed with me.
Am I just the only one, that questions this influence on children life and development, that sounds "a bit" like a back to the colonial roots approach, just to create future work force and trim people from the early childhood on, in a way that tries to turn many dystopian thoughts into reality.
The Humanities really need to reclaim their place in the science community.
Proposals:
1.) Basic education needs to be universal and not career oriented.
2.) Jeff Bezos and Amazon need to be stopped.
3.) Bad SciFi should not become reality
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Giant Big Data monopolies have become so large they run social services (for their own benefit of course). The only thing they lack is their own countries.
Re: (Score:2)
2) Without a doubt.
Re: (Score:2)
... as part of making basic education universal, perhaps we should straight up ban corporations from directly getting involved in educating our children.
A thousand times this. Corporations want to indoctrinate students; partly so they'll have compliant future employees, but also because they want to discourage them from studying arts and humanities. The more technocratically-minded people the schools churn out, the fewer 'troublemakers' they'll have questioning and opposing corporate rule.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Am I just the only one, that questions this influence on children life and development, that sounds "a bit" like a back to the colonial roots approach, just to create future work force and trim people from the early childhood on, in a way that tries to turn many dystopian thoughts into reality.
An Indian H1-B in the US once said to me:
"In the days of my great-grandfather, the English business folks came to India to exploit the Indian workers there.
Now we Indian workers voluntarily travel to the US to let American businesses exploit us!"
Here in scenic Germany, my expert on Foreign Policy, the Indian owner of the local Kiosk, showed me the front page of a British tabloid, that he claimed indicated that they left the EU so they can create a new Empire of Colonies again.
But he proudly stated that
Re: (Score:2)
I like to build rapport with my Indian coworkers by talking about how we in the US kicked the British out. Who needs a king?
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't controlling the entire curriculum. The CS oriented portion will only take up a small part of the class. Unlike in the US most parents in Asia *want* that.
The argument against teaching any sort of basic computer skills could be made of teaching people reading and arithmetic .. there was a time those were "career oriented" too. Not everyone was going to grow up to be a scribe. And math was hardly needed except by scientists or architects/engineers. People got by *without* any kindergarten or educa
Re: (Score:1)
Meanwhile sexist American organisations like code.org are trying to prevent boys and force girls to do IT, so girls "don't get into development because they enjoy it or are good at it". The effects in America will be the same.
Source:
https://developers.slashdot.or... [slashdot.org]
Re: The last thing the world needs (Score:2)
Enabling education and career choice is good... but as you point out this is absolutely not out of the goodness of Bezos' heart...
This is about turning developers into commodity workers -- which is already happening everywhere -- with the goal of increasing availability and decreasing cost for Amazon and AWS using companies.
Similar to high end software being "given" to schools in order to generate students who are trained and familiar with your products.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: The last thing the world needs (Score:2)
When 'Muricans call themselves "the world".
You know what they call somthing with the population of the entire US in India?
A federal state.
At least with an Indian programmer, there is a chance he won't stab me in the back in a psychopathic manner, just for money. With 'Muricans, that is guaranteed. With NSA cherries ontop.
Re: (Score:2)
Programmers will not stab you in the back "just for money". They're just wage slaves like everyone else. The NSA will never bother with such people. They have their own people to make modifications to code where necessary. Low-rent programmers from India are no different. They will be told by project management not to mess with those libraries/APIs or otherwise alter code that has been added to the project by management. Also, if the GP is correct in his assertion (which you do nothing to support or r
Why Does "Childhood to Career CS"... (Score:2)
Re: Why Does "Childhood to Career CS"... (Score:2)
Because that is how The Bezos from Planet Bezos think. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon ... childhood ... *shudders* (Score:2)
Two words that should *never* be uttered together.
Children do not know what is done to them is not normal.
There have been children kept in a windowless basement room, naked, crawling on their knees, esmating from dog bowls, in a Romanian child home, some decades ago, and the kids didn't seem to think anything was weird about that, because it was all they knew.
All it reminds me of, is my grandma's stories of her meeting Hitler Youth kids working for the Gestapo. She said they weren't humans anymore. They beh
Re: (Score:2)
"Alexa, please babysit my child."
Why India? (Score:2)
Honest question. Put aside stereotypes (if possible). If it truly is Bezos' wish to flood the market with even more low-rent programmers, can't this be done in other countries?
Re: Why India? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Honest question. Put aside stereotypes (if possible). If it truly is Bezos' wish to flood the market with even more low-rent programmers, can't this be done in other countries?
Perhaps it's easier in India because of the caste system. I imagine it predisposes people toward accepting preordained roles. Except in this case they're preordained by Amazon rather than by lineage.
So what? (Score:2)
I'l bet there will be an overwhelming number of applicants for this. Parents will choose this for their kids. It's their right, and a good choice. CS education early is a very good idea. In the future, as today, programming and mathematics will allow you to build the future. Otherwise you can be an entertainer or someone who uses or builds things designed by others. If you can't even do basic coding you'll be like a grandma who has to call someone to change a lightbulb. Everyone knows the future is going to