Amazon has announced that is is now funding computer science courses for more than 2,000 High Schools benefiting more than 100,000 students as part of its Future Engineer Program.

Amazon Future Engineer began a year ago as a four-pronged, childhood-to-career program to support the uptake of computer science by inspiring and educate 10 million children and young adults each year from underserved and underrepresented communities. Funded as a large part of Amazon’s $50 million investment in computer science and STEM over the next five years, elements of the program include coding camps and online lessons, paying for introductory and Advanced Placement (AP) computer science courses, as well as underwriting college scholarships for degrees in computer science.

Speaking at the launch last November, Jeff Wilkes, Amazon’s worldwide consumer CEO said:

“Computer science skills are some of the most in-demand in the modern economy, and we have created Amazon Future Engineer because we believe young people from all backgrounds should have help from childhood to career so they can have a future in this highly paid, rapidly-growing field,”

A year on the program has reached a milestone by allocating funding to 2,000 high schools, from every state in the US to. provides access to computer science courses, at both introductory and AP levels, through its curriculum providers – Edhesive and Code.org. Amazon’s funding also provides preparatory lessons, tutorials, professional development for teachers, fully sequenced and paced digital curriculum for students, and live online support every day of the week for both teachers and students. 

In addition, Amazon Future Engineer has donated more than $10 million to organizations that promote computer science/STEM education across the United States.

The map refers to the Bureau of Labor Statistics quoted since the inception of the Hour of Code program that by 2020 there will be 1.4 million computer-science-related jobs available and only 400,000 computer science graduates with the skills to apply for those jobs. As we reported in Code.org Five Years On quite a lot has already been done to ameliorate this situation - however there is still a gap to be filled and Amazon's funding is certainly welcome, a sentiment expressed by District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee:

We have future scientists, engineers, and inventors in our classrooms throughout the District, and I am proud that we have resources like Amazon’s Future Engineer program to provide them with the learning opportunities they need to achieve their goals. We are excited to welcome the Amazon team to Dunbar High School to see our students in action, and their passion and excitement for computer science is what drives us to continue to expand our STEM programming through National Academy Foundation (NAF) Academies, courses, extracurricular activities, and more.”

Last month Amazon extended the Future Engineer program to the UK where the aim is to to reach more than one million children and young people across the UK over the next two years. This will be achieved by supporting the recruitment and training of 50 secondary school computer science teachers and over 200 ‘Careers Leaders and creating other opportunities to experience computer science.

In particular 10,000 primary school pupils will have the opportunity to take part in free robotics workshops at Amazon fulfillment centres across the UK, learning to program robots which use technology similar to that used by Amazon itself. 

More Information

Amazon Future Engineer

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