Matt Richardson, Director of North America for Raspberry Pi, spoke with Engineering.com at the USA Science and Engineering Festival about his organization’s charitable educational work in empowering young people to learn coding skills, access computing power and become more creative.
“Our mission is to put the power of digital making and computing into the hands of people all over the world,” said Richardson.
Raspberry Pi is best known for its line of low-priced computers: the top-of-the-line model costs only $35. They are capable of doing everything a regular computer does, but are also loaded with educational software and programming environments and languages.
Young people and hobbyists are using them to create, build and learn to code. The computers are also used in industrial and commercial environments.
The money raised from computer sales is used to fund training educators, provide curriculum resources and finance after-school coding clubs.
Richardson believes that young people are empowered by owning their own computer, which they can use to experiment and create what they want—without fear of failure or fear of ruining an expensive electronic device.
Matt Richardson of Raspberry Pi talks about the educational goals of this “charity that owns a computer company.”
Richardson is particularly excited about the potential to blend creativity and technology. “I believe that not only can tech be used to solve problems, but it can also be used for expression,” he said. “I think what we need is more young people who are finding intersections between technology and some other passion.”
He believes that making computing more accessible will help inspire the next generation of engineers, scientists and artists. “There are a lot of wonderful things you can do in the world but the opportunity I don’t think is evenly distributed to everybody,” he said.
Raspberry Pi aims to make computing accessible to everyone, inspiring the next generation of engineers.
Matt Richardson, Raspberry Pi’s Director of North America, talks about using technology to explore, solve problems—and have fun.
Find out more about Raspberry Pi’s education and technology programs at www.raspberrypi.org.