Once again Trump is looking to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook for advice on tech industry matters. According to Bloomberg, the President met with Cook and Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs, as well as politicians, educators and other CEOs, to discuss STEM funding.
Wednesday’s conference
These experts were approached to discuss their views and advice on funding math, science, engineering and technology in American public schools. The conference was held on Wednesday by Ivanka Trump, the President’s daughter, and Reed Cordish, the President’s assistant for technology initiatives.
Other representatives called upon included:
“Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson; Accenture North America’s CEO Julie Sweet, Microsoft President Brad Smith; Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and representatives from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Stanford, MIT and Broward County, Florida, Schools.”
Trump looks to Cook once again
This is not the first time Trump has looked to Cook for advice on tech industry matters. Cook is on the White House’s American Technology Council, however, he declined the offer to serve on the council’s parent organization, the Office of American Innovation. Cook has even met with Ivanka Trump before, as well as her husband, Jared Kushner.
Cook’s views on education
Cook has been consistent on his education views and insists on the importance of teaching coding in schools, hoping it will become as embedded into the curriculum as learning a foreign language. He voiced his opinion during a roundtable with the President last month:
“Secondly, totally unrelated, but something I feel very passionate about: coding should be a requirement in every public school. We have a huge deficit in the skills that we need today, versus the skills that are there, and we’re trying to do our part or, hopefully, more than our part in doing that. But I think leadership from government is also key.”
The outcome of the meeting with technology experts is yet to be seen.