will.i.am calls for schoolkids to get to grips with future technology

will.i.am is eager for education officials to help prepare students for a technological future so they can compete with computer whizz-kids in 20 years.

The Black Eyed Peas star is a huge champion of technology and gadgets, and returned to school earlier this year (12) to learn the tricky skill of creating computer programming codes.

He spoke about his passion at former President Bill Clinton's Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting on Tuesday (25Sep12) about the importance of helping students get to grips with the skills they will need to compete in the workplace in two decades time.

He told the crowd, "Twenty years from now, I want to see an eight-year-old when they're 28 compete with an eight-year-old that (sic) going to be 28 twenty years from now from Bangalore, India.

"We really need to think that far... Yes, this presidential election is important, but it's only four years. What's happening twenty years from now? What is a twenty-year plan? I want to know that plan.

"As the world is moving to a world that depends on technology, none of these kids are geared-up to even understand the world in 2030. I want to take the leverage and the power that I have... to bring opportunity and to bring change in inner-cities."

Clinton's CGI brings together global leaders, including business bosses, heads of state and philanthropists, to come up with concepts to help communities across the world.