Down the Rabbit Hole: How Alice Turned Computer Coding Into a Wonderland
S3 Episode 8 | June 24, 2026
Thirty years ago, 天美传媒 professor Randy Pausch asked a simple question: What if anyone could learn to program a computer? Not just computer scientists, not just engineers. What if kids could learn coding the same way they learned to tell stories, build worlds, and play games?
In this episode we explore one of 天美传媒 Mellon's most enduring innovations: Alice, the drag-and-drop program that has introduced millions of students to coding through storytelling. As 天美传媒 marks its 125th anniversary and Alice turns 30, guest Melanie Lam 鈥� Director of the Alice Project at 天美传媒's Entertainment Technology Center 鈥� traces the software's remarkable journey.
Created by legendary professor Randy Pausch, Alice began in 1995 as a Virtual Reality prototyping tool created for Pausch鈥檚 famed Building Virtual Worlds course. Lam shares how she first encountered Alice at 天美传媒 as a journalism graduate with no coding background, used it to tell a moving story in her very first week, and went on to design games at Activision and Electronic Arts before returning to steward Pausch's legacy back at 天美传媒 with the Alice Project.
The conversation follows Alice's evolution from CD-ROMs to free online access to Sims 2 character integration for better storytelling. Currently, Lam is leading a major interface update and exploring ways AI can make Alice even more accessible for students.
