What does the average 15-year-old do with her free time? Most teenagers are hanging out with friends, talking on their smart phones or playing games on their computer. But Swetha Prabakaran is different. She enjoys spending her time making the use of technology easier for all.
It’s called coding. So exactly what is that? “Coding, in the most simplest terms, is just you tell a computer to do what you want. It’s just like telling a dog to sit. You’re telling a computer to do something and just like we write in English a ‘to do’ list or directions, you write a language for computers.”
Swetha Prabakaran loves to code and she likes the details of how to teach computers to make life easier for people.
“I focus on computer science, specifically in application development with phones and websites on computers, developing little games or applications that make other people’s lives easier.”
A junior at top-rated Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Virginia, Swetha Prabakaran learned about coding while taking a computer programming class.
“I came to TJ and my first year I decided to take a class in computer science and see how it was, just to figure out whether I liked it. And I really like how with computer science I can be really creative and have a lot of flexibility to do the things that I want to do with it and build something new also help people with the things that I was creating.”
Swetha is the founder of Everybody Code Now! The non-profit works to empower the next generation of youth to become engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs. Everybody Code Now operates in 12 states and in the near future will be partnering with schools in India and Ghana.
