Kaspars Dancis

In the future, almost all daily work will depend on industrial and other processes that will be managed by computers and software, so Latvian schools should teach programming starting from the very first grade, says Kaspars Dancis, developer of electronic address book application – Cobook.

“Latvian schools should teach if not programming, then at least a programmer’s thinking from the very first grade. It should be marked with the same priority as mathematics. Personally, I believe that it should be done in order to be ahead of other countries,” he says.

The interview with Dancis was recorded right before Estonia announced it was going to teach computer programming from the first grade.

“If one starts learning programming after high school, it turns out to be a very difficult process. All the best programmers I know started to do in the first years of their studies.”

Dancis was referring to the Latvian National Development Plan.

“The document speaks about innovative industries. It seems to me that the only chance for Latvia to become one of the most developed EU countries is to focus on information technology (IT) sector,” he stresses.

If not in a decade, then in 50 years software development will be the largest industry in the world, according to the expert.

As reported, alternative electronic address book Cobook will soon run also on Apple iPhone and Android phones, says Cobook co-developer Kaspars Dancis.

More than 250 000 Macintosh users have downloaded free Cobook since May.

“To further develop and promote the paid version of the tool, we need to attract about a million euro from venture capital,” Dancis says.

But it could be done with fewer investments if the paid version of Cobook was as successful as the free one.

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