Exclusive | Zuckerberg-backed US school teaches coding with robotics kits designed by Chinese farmer’s son
AltSchool, a Silicon Valley education start-up, is one of 20,000 schools worldwide that use robotics kits designed in China by Makeblock
Makeblock is a Shenzhen based robotics start-up that is little known outside its field, but for the children at more than 20,000 schools worldwide, their introduction to coding may come from playing with the company’s Lego-like robotics kits.
One of those schools is AltSchool, the Silicon Valley education start-up founded by a former Google executive and backed by investors including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Unlike ready-made robots, Makeblock’s do-it-yourself kits have to be assembled and the students can then control them by writing a program.
“The US kids can’t tell any difference between the robots that are designed by Chinese or US engineers,” Wang Jianjun, 32, founder and chief executive of Makeblock, said in an interview in Shenzhen, where the company has about 400 employees.
Makeblock is among the Chinese start-ups riding the wave of interest and demand for robotics education, which is integral to equipping the workforce of tomorrow with necessary skills. China has made the development of artificial intelligence – an advanced form of machine science – a national priority as it continues to push the economy toward one led by science and technology.
The International Federation of Robotics expects sales of 3 million robots for education and research – double that number if toy and hobby robots are counted – in the three years through 2018.
