A story of a supermodel, NBA star, US defence chief, US senator and a rapper who learned how to code.

1. Look who’s
coding!
Joey Rigor
Kontak Mobile Apps February 12, 2016

2. Coders are nerds!
Not anymore.
They are today’s rock stars.

3. Without them?
Well, you’ll just be using your
phone to call mom.
No iPhones, no apps, no nothing.

4. But we’ll not be talking
about Steve Jobs, Mark
Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey or any
of the billionaire jocks that build
your smartphone and your apps.

5. We will be talking about
a supermodel, an NBA star and
even a former defence chief.

6. This is a story of
why they learned to
code.

7. Let’s start with the prettiest.
Of course.

8. Karlie Kloss.
The fashionista nerd.
Born August 3, 1992, 24-year old Karlie is
one of the top supermodels today. Has
Danish roots. Her father is a doctor and as
a child hoped to be one.
Karlie attended Webster Groves High
School in her hometown in St. Louis.
Started modelling at age 14 when she was
"discovered at a local benefit runway
show” in 2006.

9. She enrolled in the Gallatin School of
Individualized Study of New York University
in 2015 to start her learning journey.
Karl wanted to learn how technology
works. Admits she is a nerd inside the
fashionable clothes she wore on the
catwalk.
Wished to have started as a kid but still
went on to learn code on her own during
breaks in her fashion gigs.

10. “With code is like having superpowers. You
can build anything.”
Even setup “Kode with Karlie” scholarship
to help young girls learn how to code.
Beauty and brains. With a heart in helping
others discover her interest in using
technology to build things.

11. Ronald Rumsfeld.
Because of a passion to a game.
”I’ve done business, politics, and war. Now
I’m trying my hand at mobile gaming.”
At 83 years old, Donald Rumsfeld, veteran
of three Republican administrations and
the pharmaceutical industry, is starting a
new career as an app developer in 2015.

12. He did not actually code the game but
learned about designing and writing code
while assisting in the development of his
game app.
It’s a card game that dates back to the
Second World War. A “devilish” version of
Solitaire that an aide of Winston Churchill
taught Rumsfeld.

13. After retiring, he pursued the the demanding and
complex game with the tenacity of a former
defence chief during the time when America
were at war at different fronts.
A great way of keeping his mind keen and sharp
during his sunset years.
It was this passion that he did not want the game
forgotten. So at 83, he did what other tech geeks
knew how, he build an app.

14. Chris Bosh.
What if basketball doesn’t work
out for me?
Chris Bosh, born March 24, 1984, is a five-
time NBA All-Star player currently playing
for the Miami Heat. Always liked basketball
since he was a kid. Was accepted to
Georgia Tech but quit to go professional.
While busy playing, he was learning how to
program on his own.

15. In high school, he joined a club called
Wizkids, a computer graphics club. At 7
feet tall, he got teased a lot since he does’t
look like the typical computer nerd.
Even as a basketball superstar, he still kept
his interest in coding and continued to
learn. Always remembered why he learned
in the first place. This is the main reason
Chris is an avid advocate to Code.org,
evangelising kids to learn how to code.

16. Will.i.am.
The rapper that builds tech products.
Born William James Adams to a single mother in a
poor community in Los Angeles. He began his
music career at high school and later formed the
Black Eyed Peas.
Had a different strategy to sell themselves by
rapping on college campuses "until every single
college kid" knew them. Continued this style
years later by selling a “brand not a band” to
companies to endorse their products.

17. As a musician, producer, and advocate for
education, he is an enthusiastic user of
technology in his professional and personal life.
He is one of the founder in Beats Electronics, the
creators of Beats by Dre™ headphones. Will.i.am
also developed his i.am+ foto.sosho camera
accessory for iPhone4/4s and iPhone 5.
Even after designing and building numerous tech
products, he admits he is still learning how to
really code. He is bewitched by the
“superpower” of code. Hoped one day to build an
app “even if it takes ten years to do it”.

18. Cory Booker.
The U.S. Senator who can code.
Cory Booker is an American politician and a junior
United States Senator from New Jersey.
He attended Stanford University, played college
football and received a Bachelor of Arts in
political science and a Master of Arts in sociology.
He also attend the University of Oxford and later
received his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.

19. This education in top universities made him
realise the importance of learning
technology. He is an advocate of code.org
mission to teach computer science in
American schools to make them better
prepared for the digital world.
Learned to code on his own. During a visit
to the organisation’s HQ, Senator Booker
surprised everyone by making a simple app
in JavaScript.

20. There you go.
People who had already excelled
in their own fields of endeavour
still believed on the importance of
learning how to code.
Maybe we should, too.

21. http://www.kontakios.com
Now what?
This is part of a series of posts trying to
convince you to be a coder.
Hope you are beginning to be
convinced, grasshopper.
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