Cloud Computing Explained (By Kids)

Accenture had a brilliant idea: Ask the current and future users of the cloud – kids – what they think cloud computing is. Accenture captured the answers in this video, which is nothing short of brilliant. Take a look and here's some background.

Call them millenials, digital natives, future customers – whatever moniker you want – the kids Accenture interviewed to get their thoughts on the cloud were spot-on in their explanations. Not only that, it was clear they understand the benefits of the technology and firmly believe the cloud will be the de facto way of storing and accessing data and applications moving forward, in both consumer and business settings.

“In cloud computing, information’s not stored on my computer, it’s stored in the cloud,” said one savvy preteen. “And this cloud can be accessed by any computer, anywhere in the world.”

“It takes the work off a computer so it’s not bombarded with all this work and stuff,” noted another. “For a company, if they have all these different people working on computers, they can all log into one database that has all the programs they need to do their jobs.”

These explanations of the cloud, distributed workload and 24/7 collaboration may seem simplistic, but they’re in fact about as exact as you can get without a master’s degree in computer science. The fact these kids – who, as the video pointed out, have never experienced a world without iTunes or Amazon.com – “get” the cloud speaks volumes to the ubiquity and longevity of a technology that, all told, is maybe three years old.

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