Episode 38: February 2019 News Podcast

In February we heard some interesting debates about the ethics of data science, how bootcamps are partnering with universities, and companies like Infosys and Google, and how the number of tech education options in Africa is growing! Plus, Thinkful attempted to predict the Oscars, the Ohio Lt. Governor stopped by Tech Elevator, and women in bootcamps were recognized. We also looked at various ways to pay for bootcamp, and tips for breaking into tech. Listen to the podcast or read the roundup below.

February Fundraises

• Climb Credit, which offers financing for affordable alternative training schools like coding bootcamps, announced this February that it has raised an additional $50 million in lending capital from Goldman Sachs.
• Budapest-based coding bootcamp Codecool has raised €3.5 million in their Series B round of venture capital. Codecool plans to open 10 campuses and to develop an alumni network of nearly 10 thousand people by 2023.

Student Success Stories

• A Flatiron School graduate and his wife launched a Jewish dating app for orthodox Jewish singles called Forj, which is reportedly seeing a 90% success rate in its matchmaking!
• Global News Canada profiles Lighthouse Labs graduate Maggie Yang who transitioned from insurance underwriting to software development.
• The Hechinger Report looks at how bootcamp provider Trilogy Education monitors student success using weekly surveys, and how they have found that the biggest determinant of a student’s success is lack of support.

Data Science in the News

• A piece from Live Science looks at how output from algorithms can produce biased results, and quotes a Data Scientist from Metis Data Science Bootcamp, and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who made headlines when she backed this point up.
• Xconomy looks at how data science educators are calling for people studying data science to get access to real data. The article mentions that Codeup coding school in San Antonio has been stonewalled by companies when asking to use their data for training.
• Houston Bizjournals reported on a new Brookings study which says that AI and robotics threaten 1 in 4 Houston jobs, and suggests ways to retrain and retool displaced workers for new professions, including an expansion of accelerated learning programs like coding bootcamps.

Universities + Coding bootcamps

• EdSurge’s Sydney Johnson profiles the legal minutiae of the partnership between Dominican University and Make School, with reference to Betsy Devos’ proposal to remove restrictions on accredited colleges.
• On EdSurge, we read details about a new partnership between Fullstack Academy and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to run a 26-week, online, part-time course for the university’s continuing education school.
• Irish Tech News reports that Metis is partnering with Dublin Business School, an independent college, to deliver a live online 12-week machine learning course.
• Canadian coding bootcamp Lighthouse Labs has launched a competition for Canadian universities to earn points and win money if students take part in mentoring and learning coding basics. The competition, CanUCode, runs from February 25-March 25.

How Companies Are Partnering with Bootcamps

• A Tampa Bay tech company, Proforma, partnered with Suncoast Developers Guild in Tampa Bay to put an entire group of new hires through coding bootcamp.
• WRAL Tech Wire reports that Infosys is partnering with NC State University to train new employees through a 6-week data science bootcamp covering statistics, data visualization, machine learning and Python.
• Mexican human resources advisory group GIN Group is committing an undisclosed amount to Holacode via its venture fund GINcapital. The goal is to support technical skills development among an underserved demographic group: young migrants and refugees.
• Rapid Growth profiles Grand Rapids coding bootcamp Grand Circus and how its students work on real projects for local Grand Rapids companies, and when they graduate the students will get to interview with those companies.
• Google is offering a 10-week, full-time free machine learning bootcamp at 5 colleges around the country. The program will initially launch at 4 women’s colleges, and will focus on hands-on project-based learning.
• AWS (Amazon Web Services) is partnering with Coven Works to teach 400 youths in West Africa AI and data science skills. The program includes a 6-week bootcamp, followed by the AWS Educate curriculum, and students then work with Coven Works to land job interviews in cloud careers.

EdTech in Africa

• Elvis Chidera, a Nigerian entrepreneur, talked to ELearningInside about Africa’s growing edtech scene, about the increase in students studying STEM subjects at university, and how more and more alternatives to university are cropping up, such as Andela.
• The founder of HyperionDev, Riaz Moola, writes a guest post for University World news about why he started Hyperion Dev in Africa, and about his new initiative - CoGrammar.
• A 2-year coding bootcamp called YouCode has launched in Morocco in northern Africa, which is free for anyone aged 18-35, regardless of their background.
• The first data science academy in Ghana is called Blossom Academy, and trains students and pairs them with local tech companies.
• The Rwanda government wants to establish five coding academies, one in each province, with the aim of enrolling 300 students per year.
• It’s not only Africa that’s seeing bootcamps shape the future; Twin Cities Business Magazine looks at the impact of bootcamps on the tech labor shortage in Minneapolis, mentioning coding bootcamp Prime Digital Academy.

Paying for Bootcamp - ISAs & GI Bill

• News Channel 5 Nashville focused on App Academy’s income share agreement, speaking to founder Kush Patel and a student, Skylar Prill.
• An article on theRSA.org looks at ISAs with focus on the trends of the growing coding bootcamp model, and cites Course Report stats.
• According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a Georgia Senate committee heard a proposal to allow some college students to repay grants with a portion of their future earnings. This could apply to some bootcamps in the state.
• Anne Kim, the Vice President of Domestic Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, wrote about a bill by Republican Assemblyman Randy Voepel to establish an ISA pilot at the University of California system, which failed to make it past the state Senate last session, but unanimously passed the Assembly.
• Clearance Jobs reports The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced a new five-year pilot training program called the Veteran Employment Through Technology Education Course or VET TEC. The program options will include many coding bootcamps that are already GI bill approved.
• And according to the San Antonio Express, Rackspace’s Open Cloud Academy now accepts the GI Bill to fund tuition.

Tips for Breaking into Tech

• A Lambda School instructor wrote a guest post for EdSurge about three video games that helped him learn skills for a successful career.
• Dice put together a list of tips for breaking into new collar tech jobs such as cybersecurity architects, project managers, cloud administrators, data storage engineers and UI designers.
• 13 experts from Forbes Technology Council put together a comprehensive list of resources for beginner coders for Forbes.com. The list includes books, games, free learning websites, and videos.
• BusinessInsider reports that CS students aren’t learning useful coding languages, and resorting to self-teaching or bootcamps to get jobs

New Bootcamps + Bootcamp Updates

• According to EdSurge and Computer World, Trilogy is launching their first coding bootcamp in Australia at Monash University in Melbourne.
• WAER Interviews the founders of Hack Upstate, a 24-week coding bootcamp launching in Upstate New York about a new, free program called Careers in Code, aimed at women and minorities in poverty.
• Flatiron School news:
  • According to Dallas News, Flatiron School has announced their new Dallas Campus in Victory Park, which is their 10th campus.
  • Flatiron is launching a data science fellowship program at its D.C. campus.
  • WCBS radio interviewed founders Adam Enbar and Avi Flombaum about how the school is preparing the Amazon workforce in Queens (this was before Amazon pulled out of Queens)
  • Flatiron is teaming up with the Opportunity Hub to create OHUB@Flatiron, an initiative to expand access to tech for students from undertapped communities, including 10 full and 50 partial tuition scholarships.
• Metis data science bootcamp is partnering with Kaplan Learning Institute in Singapore to launch their 12-week data science course in the region.
• A blockchain bootcamp is launching in The Bahamas, organized by the Caribbean Blockchain Alliance (CBA) and supported by the Inter-American Development Bank in the Caribbean.

New Schools in the Course Report Directory:

• Campus Boream, Madrid, Spain
• Simplilearn, online
• VIVADATA, Paris, France
• Texas A&M University Information Security Bootcamp
• Cal Poly Coding Bootcamp, online
• UX Design Institute, online
• Vanilla Coding, Korea
• Tortuga Coders, Thailand

Liz & Imogen’s Favorite Blog Posts

• Imogen enjoyed learning all about AWS (Amazon Web Services) from Codesmith instructor. Schno Mozingo. He explained the origins of AWS, how it helps companies launch websites without a huge amount of local hardware, and how software engineers use AWS on a day-to-day basis. Check out the article to find some links to videos and courses which can help you start learning how to use AWS!
• Liz got to talk to two Metis graduates, Emily and Halle, on a video Q&A this month. These two women actually graduated from the same Metis cohort a couple of years ago, and have since progressed their careers! They chatted about how they’ve gone from Junior Data Scientists to mid/senior level data scientists, and gave some great advice for any bootcamp graduate.

FURTHER READING

• January 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• 2018 End of Year News Roundup Podcast
• November 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast

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About The Author

Imogen is a writer and content producer who loves writing about technology and education. Her background is in journalism, writing for newspapers and news websites. She grew up in England, Dubai and New Zealand, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.