Public and private entities, business leaders and prominent figures from all areas of society are endorsing this cause to spread awareness and educate children and teachers.

Madrid, 19 July 2022.
Banco Santander’s Executive Chair, Ana Botín, is joining international leaders supporting for Code.org, an NGO that seeks to teach children and teachers coding in education centres across the world. 

“Teaching boys and girls maths from an early age is fundamental because they are the language of the digital era”, said Ana Botín. She also pointed out that “coding and technology are at the heart of many projects of the companies being created today in Spain and worldwide”.

Code.org is an NGO that was founded in the US in 2013. Its mission is for every student in every school across the globe to study computer science as they would learn maths, algebra, biology or any other subject. 

The not-for-profit believes computer science helps develop logic, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and other skills that the jobs of the future will demand. Also, coding is an interesting part of general culture in the digital age. 

Botín emphasized that it’s important that we all help change people’s mindset to promote careers in science and that boys and girls should be exposed to related disciplines from a young age. “This will open up many possibilities for them in the future: being able to work in companies that are changing the world, whether they’re small, medium or large enterprises”. 

According to Code.org, coding is a key skill in today’s world; but educators face four barriers to teaching it: a high degree of unawareness in society; few women in STEM careers; the technological gap and a lack of teacher training; and the difficulties many companies experience to hire qualified professionals.  

Banco Santander’s Executive Chair is supporting this global cause alongside prominent political, institutional, business and social leaders from all over the world, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Justin Trudeau, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Susan Wojcicki, Sheryl Sandberg, Bono, Malala and Richard Branson. In Spain, it has been endorsed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, all four former PMs and government ministers, in addition to corporate CEOs and board chairs, journalists and artists.