Recent developments in society and the tech industry have started to see a concern over the lack of diversity at the workplace, namely how there seem to be more men than women in the field. However there have been efforts made to change that, such as introducing apps and programs that teach women how to code.
There are also initiatives where apps have been developed that encourage children to code, thus introducing programming at a young age to hopefully prevent any kind of stigma or preconceived notions of women in the tech industry from setting in. That being said, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella revealed that he believes games like Minecraft are also a good way to get girls interested.
According to Nadella who has two daughters of his own, “The reason I love Minecraft is because it’s a game that brings boys and girls. The fact that it’s an open world environment, it’s not constraining in terms of what you would want to build. It’s not constraining even in terms of the cultural bias sometimes you have depending on which country you want to be able to use the tool in. So, therefore, it’s a very, very rich tool.”
While Minecraft might have been created as a video game, it seems that due to the nature of it, many have started to see its potential as an educational tool. We’re not sure if this was by design or a happy coincidence, but with Microsoft essentially owning the studio that developed it, it will be interesting to see the direction that the game will be headed in the future and how it could evolve further to become more educational.
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