America's shortage of proficient software programmers is well-known.
With the help of US president Barack Obama, singer Shakira, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other celebrities, a group of technology advocates is hoping to do something about it.
Code.org is hoping to inspire thousands of students to spend one hour learning to code in the hope that it will push them into a computer science career.
In addition to a $US20 million ($A22.02 million) effort to get schools across the country to offer students coding classes, the initiative will also see free coding lessons at all Microsoft and Apple retail stores.
Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Apple, MSN, Bing and Disney will be featuring the Hour of Code on their homepages.
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The organisation also issued a video featuring Shakira, Obama, Ashton Kutcher and others encouraging the initiative.
"Don't just play with your phones, program them," said the US president.
