Tech savvy teen codes White House Christmas Tree  

Gole (right) toured the White House and also met Sen. Dan Coats (left).
Gole (right) toured the White House and also met Sen. Dan Coats (left).

BATESVILLE, Ind. – A Batesville Middle School eighth grader used her tech talents to program the lights on Indiana’s official White House Tree.

Kelly Gole participated in Google’s Made with Code, an initiative that encourages girls to pursue their interest in computer science.

The program expanded this year by inviting coders to travel to Washington D.C. to participate in the lighting ceremony of 56 official White House Christmas trees. Each U.S. state and territory has a designated tree surrounding the National Christmas Tree.

Gole was among young women from all fifty states who used computer coding skills to control the colors and patterns of the lights on a tree.

The 13-year-old was invited to the nation’s capital for the lighting ceremony on December 4.

“It was amazing! We flew down there and Google paid for everything,” Kelly recalled. “We saw the White House and I even got to go inside the White House!”

Her favorite course in middle school is social studies and she reflected on the White House tour as “really cool to see all the history.”

Kelly also had the opportunity to tour the Capitol Building and meet U.S. Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.)

“He said he really liked our area of Indiana and said he could never do anything like I did with technology,” Gole said.

Kelly comes from a tech savvy family as her father, Ken, and her brother both work with computer coding.

“Coding is designing anything however you want and making the computer do what you want basically,” Gole said. “So, I can design characters in my favorite games or if a game gets boring I can change how it works, with coding.”

Kelly said the D.C. trip allowed her to meet other girls that have an interest in coding.

“What I learned, you never know what is going to happen and it can happen all of a sudden!”