Coding must be integrated into subjects in schools

He said, it is important for the country to create a community of young coders and those who can work with computers and robots of the future.

"The government's intention is to democratise innovation to equip the youngsters with the necessary skills sets to enable them to become individuals who will define the future of this nation," he said in his closing speech for Coding@Schools Hackathon 2017 for central region at the Finance Ministry here Friday. He also launched the Coding@Schools portal at the event.

A total of 255 students from 15 secondary schools and eight primary schools from Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan attended the two-day Hackathon programme where participants learned to build an application using LiveCode in an exciting and fun way.

Three schools namely Sekolah Kebangsaan Tun Hussein Onn, Kuala Lumpur, Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Seri Indah, Seri Kembangan, Selangor and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Sultan Abdul Samad, Petaling Jaya became the top three teams in this Hackaton.

The three schools will participate in the National Code Challenge 2017 in December which will bring together the best of Malaysia's young coding talent from all regions nationwide.

Coding@Schools is an introductory programme for primary students to learn the basic and fundamental principles of coding in a practical and fun way.

The pilot Coding@Schools programme last year reached 3,000 primary school students from 100 schools nationwide.

Coding@Schools is an initiative that was announced in the Budget 2016 by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak under the area of Accelerating Innovation and Entrepreneurship and is an initiative of the National Malaysian Blue Ocean Strategy. The programme is designed and coordinated by the National Strategy Unit, Ministry of Finance in cooperation with the Education Ministry.