July 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup

The coding bootcamp space is certainly not slowing down for summer – in July we read about so many new initiatives happening in the edtech space! Schools raised over $5 million and a bootcamp loan provider raised a $9.8 million Series A round, and several companies like Twitter and huge New York banks are partnering with coding bootcamps to train students. We break down a new income share agreement bill in the Senate, relay tips for determining if an online course is a ‘scam’ and tell you about a handful of new scholarships and apprenticeships. Plus, we’ll share tons of new bootcamps and expansions into new campuses (and we’ll tell you about the one school that closed in July).

Bootcamp Fundraises

• Miami Herald reports that Ironhack coding bootcamp has raised $4 million to expand the business across Europe and Latin America, and launch income share agreements. Ironhack has now raised a total of $7 million in outside investment.
• In the Middle East, Coded has raised $1.3 million in a pre-series A round to offer more of its coding bootcamps—called Barmej Online Bootcamps. 
• Climb Credit, a provider of loans for career-focused education like coding bootcamps, has raised $9.8 million in a Series A round. 

Income Share Agreements

• Inside Higher Ed and Forbes both covered a new ISA Bill, called the ISA Student Protection Act which was introduced a bipartisan group of senators (we dive into what this bill means in the podcast).
• Masai School in Bengaluru, India, which covers full-stack web development offers an income sharing agreement to students.
• Northcoders in the UK is launching a deferred tuition/ISA-type program for women.
• Gainesville Dev Academy in Florida has recently launched an income share agreement in partnership with Leif.
• Burlington Code Academy in Vermont is launching an Income Share Agreement
• General Assembly is now offering their income share agreement in NYC.
• VenturesAfrica covered Lambda School’s partnership with a Nigerian payment company to launch their ISA and online program in Africa, explaining that Lambda graduates will pay back 10 percent of their salary for five years once they are earning more than $15,000 annually.
• Nerd Wallet looks at how to pay for coding bootcamp, with options including using an ISA, attending an EQUIP program school, applying for scholarships, attending a school with a tuition guarantee, using GI Bill benefits and more. 

The Status and Future of Ed Tech

• The Software Development Times looks at the popularity of coding bootcamps and MOOCs, mentioning why they are attractive to learners, and citing Course Report stats. 
• Forbes contributor Derek Newton looks at the current status of TechHire with regards to coding bootcamps. 
• In an opinion piece for IBL news, Mikel Amigot looks at the launch of new edtech companies in 2013, and how the surge might be waning. 
• UVA’s director of online learning Kristin Palmer writes a guest post for CIO Applications about how in the 21st century, people need to be continuously learning to remain current in technology, mentioning online learning programs, MOOCs, and coding bootcamps.

Scholarships + Diversity in Tech Bootcamps

• HR Dive looks at how more men than women hold degrees in or work in STEM across the US and looks at initiatives to help change this, including a partnership between the Flatiron School and SeatGeek
• Fullstack Academy and The Grace Hopper Program are committing $90,000 to LGBTQ+ tech community. If students win a Lesbians Who Tech Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship, Fullstack and Grace Hopper will cover half of the tuition for students to attend one of the coding bootcamps.
• The Guardian looks at whether coding clubs and bootcamps can diversify tech, focusing on organizations like Code Your Future, which is a coding club that’s equipping excluded communities with tech skills.
• Anisah Britton, the CEO and founder of 23 Code Street, a coding school for women, talked to computing.co.uk about how businesses can make themselves more welcoming to diverse candidates. 
• Metis is offering four full-tuition scholarships to women studying in Chicago or Seattle for the upcoming September cohorts, worth $17,000. 
• Inverse.com interviews Code to Inspire CEO Fershteh Forough, who founded a bootcamp for women in Afghanistan, about why she teaches blockchain as part of the coding bootcamp – and how blockchain helps Afghani women specifically.

Businesses Partnering with Bootcamps

• CNBC reports that Twitter has launched an apprenticeship program for women and minorities to diversify their engineering and data science teams. 
• Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo are hosting 3-week fintech coding bootcamps in their NYC offices to help increase the representation of women and people of color in software engineering within banking.
• UK company WhiteHat, founded by former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s son, is training apprentices through partnerships with Flatiron School and General Assembly.
• Dice reports that Amazon is planning to retrain 100,000 workers in tech skills through the Amazon Technical Academy and their Machine Learning University. 

Jobs After Tech Bootcamp: Salary, Location, Language

• Shelly Hagan from Bloomberg put together a list of the highest paying jobs of 2019, finding that Data Scientist is at number one, with average salaries of $95,000 per year
• Yahoo Finance reports that Coding Dojo researched which coding languages are used at unicorn startups valued at $1 billion, and found that the most used language was Python and the most used framework was ReactJS.
• Forbes contributor Tom Taulli writes about the results of a Hired survey and the trends for where developers are living. Tech salaries in Boston jumped 9% last year and Austin and Washington D.C. saw 6% increases.
• A coding bootcamp grad has founded a nonprofit tech company to help families find out if they qualify for SNAP benefits or food stamps. Genevieve Nielsen went to The Starter League in Chicago, and has used her tech skills to co-found mRelief.

Tips for Choosing a Coding Bootcamp

• Nerd Wallet reporter Anna Helhoski wrote a piece called What is a Coding Bootcamp, talks to the managing director of Coding Dojo, and cites a lot of Course Report stats about popularity, length of bootcamps, and salaries, etc. 
• US News and World Report talks to Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation about how to tell if an online degree or course is a scam. 
• Tech World put together a list of online coding course providers accessible to students in the UK including Code Institute, Flatiron School, Udemy, FreeCodeCamp, and more.
• The EU-Startups website put together a list of what they think are the 15 best coding schools in Europe including Academia de Codigo, CareerFoundry, Codeworks, Code Institute, General Assembly, Ironhack, and Le Wagon.
• A number of local Technically sites wrote articles about how to learn to code – Technically Philly, Technically Delaware, Technically Baltimore, and Technically DC.
•  IDG Connect interviewed the CEO of Symphony, Jonathan Christense for advice about getting into tech. He answers a question about coding bootcamp vs college, saying that having passion for a role is more important than where you got your skills, and advocates for internships.
• Jack Kinsella, a Data Science student at Data Science Retreat, wrote an in-depth article about what data science bootcamp is like, how he chose a data science bootcamp, and what he liked/disliked about his experience. 

Coding Bootcamp News and Updates

• Trilogy Education has launched bootcamps at the University of Adelaide in Australia, the University of Manchester and the University of Birmingham in the UK, the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering in Baltimore, and at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
• V School is partnering with Bryan University to launch a bootcamp
• Fullstack Academy is partnering with the University of North Florida to launch the UNF Coding Bootcamp which starts in October. Fullstack is also partnering with the University of San Diego to launch a Cybersecurity bootcamp.
• Flatiron School is partnering with a local Vermont workspace where students enrolled in Flatiron’s online program can study. 
• Trade Arabia reports that artificial intelligence bootcamps are launching Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. 
• Latin American hospitality chain Selina Ltd. has partnered with Israel-based tech training school Elevation Academy to launch a destination coding bootcamp in Panama.
• EU Neighbours reports that 42 Code School is opening in Armenia in Europe, as part of the 42 network. 42 is a free code school funded by French businessman Xavier Niel, which originally launched in Paris.
• A new coding bootcamp called The Digital Academy is launching in Cambridge UK, which was developed in partnership with existing UK bootcamp Code Nation.
• The Davidson College online newspaper reports on the students taking a Summer of Code bootcamp, taught by former instructors from Dev Bootcamp, Sharif Abushadi and Jesse Farmer.
• Zip Code Wilmington has been approved to receive tuition reimbursement through the VA’s VET TEC program.
• Contxto looks at Holberton’s new Medellin campus in Colombia; Hartford Courant looks at Holberton’s campus in New Haven Connecticut, and talks to some students and instructors.
• Detroit Free Press profiles Tech Elevator’s new Detroit campus which is in the TechTown business center at Wayne State.
• Explore Data Science Academy in Cape Town, South Africa is offering free 12-month courses to 500 students in 2020. Applications are open now for applicants between 18 and 35 years of age.
• Level, a data science bootcamp at Northeastern, has closed down. All active students will continue through the December completion date, as scheduled, but after training 700 students, Northeastern will no longer offer independent data analytics courses through Level.

New Schools on Course Report:

• Indiana Wesleyan University Cybersecurity Bootcamp, another online bootcamp
• Source Code Developer Academy in Bridgetown, Barbados
• Techlent, an online data science bootcamp
• USD Professional and Continuing Education Coding Bootcamp, an online bootcamp powered by Thinkful
• Butler University Data Analytics Boot Camp, in Indianapolis, Indiana 

Our Favorite Pieces on the Course Report Blog:

Liz had fun interviewing Rachel Bussert, Epicodus’ Director of Student Services who has been coordinating the internship program at Epicodus for over four years. At Course Report, we love internships as an option after bootcamp, and Rachel tells us what she’s learned about finding internship opportunities, the value of an internship before your full-time job search, and how to make the most of an internship once you’ve landed it. Check it out!

Imogen’s favorite was a video tutorial we collaborated on with an instructor from Galvanize data science bootcamp, Sean Reed! We visited the Galvanize campus in Manhattan and made a video about how students can choose between learning Python or R for data science, and what people need to know before they launch a data science career! It’s a quick 7-minute video, so a great watch for anyone interested in getting into data science!

If you enjoyed this podcast, help other future bootcampers find it by subscribing to the Course Report podcast on iTunes, and leaving a review. Course Report is also on Stitcher!

FURTHER LISTENING

• June 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• May 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• April 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast​

GA on demand - General Assembly