Hal Abelson: Personal computing emerged in the 80's as a "tinkerable" technology, that people could adapt and control. In contrast, mobile computing is emerging as a collection of consumer products built on closed platforms that provide few opportunities for non-professionals to tinker. App Inventor is motivated by the vision that ordinary people could experience mobile computing as creators, not just consumers. This goes beyond issues of teaching programming or computational thinking, to fundamental ideas about how a citizenry can be empowered in the age of information