Back in December Apple's CEO Tim Cook said that teaching coding to kids is just as important as teaching any other foreign language. And the younger kids start learning it, the better. Cook spoke to a group of New York third graders who visited a Manhattan Apple store for a coding class as noted above. Today it's being reported that Apple's Tim Cook along with an impressive list of top tech company CEO's are urging Congress to fund K-12 computer science education. The group have teamed up with governors and educators to provide $250 million in federal funding to school districts in order to give every single K-12 student in the nation an opportunity to learn how to code.

Code.org founder Hadi Partovi told TechCrunch in an email that 'The breadth of support shows that computer science isn't just a tech problem anymore, it's an America problem. And it's not just a Democrat issue, it's the most bipartisan issue in the U.S.'

That seems to be true. Of the 28 governors who signed the petition, 14 are Republican and 14 are Democrats.

Anyone interested in supporting the petition, which is organized by the Computer Science Education Coalition and Code.org, can add their name to it on Change.org. At the time of publication, the petition had 1,405 supporters." For more on this, see the full TechCrunch report here.

Business Leaders

Tim Cook, CEO, Apple

Arne Sorenson, CEO, Marriott

Barry Diller, Chairman, IAC and Expedia

Bill and Melinda Gates

Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard

Brad Smith, President, Microsoft

Brian Chesky, CEO, Airbnb

Brian Cornell, Chairman and CEO, Target

Doug McMillon, CEO, Walmart

Daniel Schulman, CEO, Paypal. Chairman, Symantec

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO, Expedia

Devin Wenig, CEO, eBay

Doug Parker, Chairman and CEO, American Airlines

Edward Breen, Chairman and CEO, DuPont

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Alphabet, Inc.

Ginni Rometty, Chairman and CEO, IBM

Grant Verstandig, CEO, Rally Health

Herb Allen, President, Allen & Company

Jack Dorsey, CEO, Twitter and Square

James Murdoch, CEO, 21st Century Fox

James P. Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley

Jeff Bezos, Chairman and CEO, Amazon

Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp

Jessica Alba, CEO, The Honest Company

Joe Lonsdale, Partner, 8VC. Founder, Palantir

John Donahoe, Chairman, Paypal

John Battelle, Chairman and CEO, NewCo

Julie Sweet, Chief Executive, Accenture North America

Larry Ellison

Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO, BlackRock

Lowell McAdam, Chairman and CEO, Verizon

Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO, Salesforce

Mark Cuban, Owner, Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres

Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman and CEO, Facebook

Rami Rahim, CEO, Juniper Networks

Randall Stephenson, Chairman and CEO, AT&T

Reid Hoffman, Chairman, LinkedIn

Rich Barton, Chairman, Zillow

Richard Anderson, CEO, Delta Airlines

Robert A. Iger, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company

Sam Altman, President, Y Combinator

Samuel Allen, Chairman and CEO, John Deere

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

Terry J. Lundgren, Chairman and CEO, Macy's, Inc

Vishal Sikka, CEO, Infosys

Governors

Asa Hutchinson, Governor, Arkansas (R)

Brian Sandoval, Governor, Nevada (R)

C.L. "Butch" Otter, Governor, Idaho (R)

Charlie Baker, Governor, Massachusetts (R)

Dannell P. Malloy, Governor, Connecticut (D)

David Y. Ige, Governor, Hawaii (D)

Doug Ducey, Governor, Arizona (R)

Earl Ray Tomblin, Governor, West Virginia (D)

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Governor, California (D)

Gina M. Raimondo, Governor, Rhode Island (D)

Jack Dalrymple, Governor, North Dakota (R)

Jack Markell, Governor, Delaware (D)

Jay Inslee, Governor, Washington (D)

John Hickenlooper, Governor, Colorado (D)

Kate Brown, Governor, Oregon (D)

Maggie Hassan, Governor, New Hampshire (D)

Mark Dayton, Governor, Minnesota (D)

Mary Fallin, Governor, Oklahoma (R)

Matt Bevin, Governor, Kentucky (R)

Matt Mead, Governor, Wyoming (R)

Mike Pence, Governor, Indiana (R)

Peter Shumlin, Governor, Vermont (D)

Phil Bryant, Governor, Mississippi (R)

Rick Snyder, Governor, Michigan (R)

Steve Bullock, Governor, Montana (D)

Susana Martinez, Governor, New Mexico (R)

Terry Branstad, Governor, Iowa (R)

Terry McAuliffe, Governor, Virginia (D)

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