Young Manhattan Beach Teen Wins Google Coding Competition

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA – A young teen computer programming coder from Manhattan Beach was one of 50 grand prize winners in an international competition known as Google Code-in. The Marco Burstein, 14, is a freshman at Chadwick School and has been coding since he was eight after taking a class with UCode in the South Bay, according to The Beach Reporter.

More than 1,350 programmers from 78 countries competed against one another to complete tasks around open source software, including website design and smart-phone apps, according to The Beach Reporter. As part of his grand prize, Burstein will visit the Google Campus in Northern California in June.

“I'm so excited,” Burstein told The Beach Reporter. “I'm really grateful I'm able to have this opportunity. I feel really lucky and super pumped.”

The seven-week contest included 22 tasks that sucked up most of the young teen's winter break. Coders were often required to work with people located in different countries as part of the competition – Burstein told The Beach Reporter it takes balance between getting a lot done, doing difficult tasks, and being creative and police.

The best way to learn coding is by doing it, he said, so he's continued to expand his knowledge through Youtube tutorials and practicing solo. He told The Beach Reporter that persistence is key, because a lot of things don't work on the first try.

“It's great being able to work with so many different people from different countries,” Burstein told The Beach Reporter. “It always amazes me how people can speak different languages, but we all use the same programming language, which is how we communicate in a sense.”

Read more at The Beach Reporter; Image via Shutterstock