June 2018 Coding Bootcamp Podcast

In the coding bootcamp industry in June 2018 the biggest trend we saw was coding bootcamps funneling grads into apprenticeships! We also saw two big fundraises by bootcamp-adjacent organizations, we heard about some interesting new legislation which could change how online bootcamps operate, and some bootcamp alumni launched exciting new careers. We also look at the effect bootcamps are having on tech industries in areas around the world, which bootcamps are offering scholarships to help women and underrepresented groups launch tech careers, and partnerships bootcamps are forming with big companies like Facebook. Read the blog post or listen to the podcast!

Fundraises

• Trilogy Education, an organization which runs coding bootcamps inside universities, has raised $50 million in its latest funding round, after raising $30 million in 2017. Trilogy works with around 30 universities in the US, Mexico, and Canada to provide intensive skills-based programs on coding, data analytics, cyber security and UX Design. Forbes does some analysis on the success of Trilogy so far.
• On a related note, James Paterson from Education Dive looked at how, in the face of declining enrollment, universities are trying to make their offerings more attractive by launching programs in more practical subjects or specialized courses that fit employer needs, or on-campus coding bootcamps.
• 2U, a Landham, Maryland-based company who partners with Flatiron School and helps universities create and market online degree-bearing graduate programs, raised $331 million through its latest public offering of common stock.

Legislation

• The US Department of Education is delaying a regulation that requires online schools to be approved to operate in every state in which students enroll. The delays have also been linked to Congress' inability to finalize the Higher Education Act.

Bootcamp Grad Success Stories

• Built in Chicago profiled Alexander Lang, a 2014 Dev Bootcamp graduate who is now a Developer Team Lead at a financial planning company called NextCapital.
• Albuquerque Journal profiled Deep Dive Coding graduate Valente Meza, a 27-year-old single parent who struggled on an $18,000-a-year Applebee’s server income, but after bootcamp became a web designer and developer earning $30,000.
• CNBC profiles Hackbright Academy graduate Becca Rosenthal, who graduated from the all women’s bootcamp in December, and is now a Software Engineer at Reddit!
• IT World Canada looked at Developer 30 under 30‘s latest selection of Canadian software developers, including Leigha Mitchell, a Bitmaker grad who is now a back end developer and advocate for diversity in coding.
• And if anyone is wondering how they can hire those talented software developers like the ones we just mentioned, Nearshore Americas published a great article called “How to find Quality Software Developers and Keep them for the Long Term.”

Bootcamps Changing the Landscape

• VOA spoke with Kenzie Academy, an apprenticeship school which offers 6-month to 2-year programs, and the co-founder Courtney Spence, who explains the tech boom in Indianapolis, and a local business owner explains that people are realizing how important it is for local workers to have the right skills to be able to thrive as coders.
• Reuters looks at how coding bootcamps like Code Chrysalis and Le Wagon are trying to inject Silicon Valley training methods into Japan’s slow-to-change corporate culture.
• Israel’s Innovation Authority has selected seven operators to run “coding boot camps” that aim to intensively train around 2,000 highly qualified computer programmers over the next five years.

Making Tech Accessible to More People

• Flatiron School has a lot going on right now:
  • News12 Brooklyn profiles a former flight attendant who is now a student at Access Labs, Flatiron School’s deferred tuition bootcamp in WeWork Dumbo Heights in Brooklyn launched in May.
  • The Houston Chronicle looks at how 400 people applied for the first Flatiron Houston cohort which starts in July, and how 15 students were selected to have their tuition covered by Facebook.
  • The EveningStandard talks to Flatiron co-founder Avi Flombaum about why they chose to expand to London, and how Flatiron is partnering with local organizations like Women Who Code and Colourintech to offer 1 million pounds worth of scholarships for women and people from minority backgrounds. Flatiron is also partnering with the WhiteHat initiative to offer apprenticeships to London grads.
• Fullstack Academy cofounders, David Yang and Nimit Maru, wrote a guest post for Recode about getting more women into tech, why we need more women in the tech industry, suggestions on how to increase the number of women in the space, and how to reduce microaggressions in the workplace.
• NewCo Shift talked with Susan Mernit, who is the founder of Hack the Hood, a bootcamp that works with low-income, 18-25-year-old young people of color in the Bay Area. They work with Adobe and LinkedIn, put students through a coding bootcamp, and then Adobe takes them on as apprentices.
• The New Times looked at how 26 women aged 18-24 went through a free 3-month coding bootcamp in Kigali, Rwanda, organized by local NGO Igire which provides training to youth who have small businesses.
• TechCrunch profiled Patriot Bootcamp, a series of programs under the Techstars banner that gives veterans the tools and connections they need in order to launch a startup in cities like San Antonio, DC, Austin, and Denver. Currently the program offers one to two multi-day events per year, but the CEO wants to build the program into a full-fledged growth accelerator that would target startups in addition to budding entrepreneurs.
• EdTech Times podcast spoke to the founder of Code Platoon, Rod Levy, about what they’re doing to train military veterans in tech in Chicago.

Scholarships and partnerships

• Fox Carolina reported that Facebook is now partnering with Carolina Code School to offer 25 full scholarships in Greenville, SC.
• EdSurge wrote that Facebook will provide 50 scholarships for students to participate in coding boot camps in Chicago offered through the Chicago Codes initiative.
• GrandCircus bootcamp in Detroit is also partnering with Facebook, and this month they announced another partnership with mortgage company United Shore to offer graduates guaranteed job interviews.
• Columbia Journalism Review looked at how aggressive Facebook has been in getting media coverage about these scholarships.
• Elearning Inside revealed that fantasy sports platform DraftKings is partnering with VetsInTech to launch Tech for Heroes, a 10-week, front end web development initiative to connect military veterans with free job training and employment in tech.
• Enspiral Dev Academy in New Zealand is offering 8 full scholarships for women in partnership with skills.org, and two scholarships for Pacific Island peoples. Dev Academy has campuses in Auckland and Wellington New Zealand, and the next cohorts start on August 6 and October 15.
• EdSurge announced that GitHub will now offer free enterprise and business-level memberships to educational institutions and coding bootcamps as part of a new GitHub Education package.

Apprenticeships

• Claim Academy in St Louis is partnering with Eagle Technology group to launch a new apprenticeship to reduce veteran unemployment. The program is approved and sanctioned by the State of Missouri Department of Apprenticeship as well as the U.S Department of Labor, and will put veterans who graduate from Claim Academy directly into entry-level roles in software development.
• According to Reuters, Microsoft is offering “returnship” programs for women who paused their careers to raise children or care for loved ones, as part of their LEAP diversity initiative which hires people from unconventional backgrounds like self-taught coders or coding bootcamps.
• Technically Baltimore reported that SmartLogic, a software company specializing in developing information retrieval and business analytics, launched an apprenticeship program for software developers, and aims to provide a pathway to jobs for developers who recently completed a coding bootcamp or college program.
• Manchester Evening news looks at how Northcoders software bootcamp in Manchester, UK has launched a 14-month apprenticeship program, in partnership with apprenticeship provider Total People.

New coding bootcamps/coding bootcamp updates

• The Tribune and KSBY looked at a new partnership between Fullstack Academy and SLO Partners, an apprenticeship program, to offer a coding bootcamp in San Luis Obispo, CA. SLO Partners is offering a number of scholarships to recent high school graduates and women.
• EdSurge and Inside Higher Ed report that Learners Guild, a 10-month software engineering program in Oakland, California has closed down, with the company saying “we were unable to find a sustainable business model.”
• Business in Vancouver reported that Lighthouse Labs in Canada will be launching a new Blockchain bootcamp, aimed at experienced developers who have used JavaScript.
  • Bloomberg had Adam Enbar from Flatiron School talk about the talent war for hiring crypto developers.
• New River Community and Technical College is holding a 16-week, part-time coding bootcamp in Beaver, West Virginia in July.
• 10 News reports that some students are questioning the quality of education at Origin Code Academy in San Diego. Jeff Winkler the co-founder says that at least one of the students didn’t regularly attend classes and that “being able to Google is an important part of the process. Origin Code Academy is also having some paperwork problems and is in the process of being approved by the BPPE in California.
• Fortune mentions a new coding school in Amsterdam, Codam, which is modeled after 42 in Paris, and will open this fall.
• Tampa Bay News reports that a coding bootcamp is opening in St Petersburg, Florida. Suncoast Developers Guild Academy opens in July and is headed up by Toni Warren who was the campus manager for The Iron Yard’s Tampa campus before it closed down.
• Coding Dojo is launching an East Bay campus in the Bay Area. Coding Dojo CEO Michael Choi talked to ELearningInside about the new location, and what goes into establishing a new coding bootcamp campus.
• Next City.org looks at how New York Public Library’s Associate Director of Technology Education and Training saw that coding bootcamps were not teaching a diverse enough group of people, and saw barriers to entry, so they launched a NYPL tech education program called TechConnect. The library has now built out 7 computer labs across the city, and Tech training programs at libraries range from high-level computer programming courses that mimic the style of a coding boot camp, to basic computer classes that teach skills such as word processing and email.

New Schools

• Bedu/Tech in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and online
• Crashcode in Stamford, Connecticut
• Carolina Code School - Greenville, South Carolina
• preHIRED - online
• CodeRocket Live - online
• Suncoast Developers Guild Academy - St. Petersburg, Florida
• Codam - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
   

Our Favorite Pieces

Imogen Crispe

• I really enjoyed shooting and editing a video interview with General Assembly graduate Ileana Ordonez. Liz and I loved hearing Ileana’s amazing story of learning to code, and why spending that time and money on coding bootcamp was worth it. She told us how learning to code landed her a job with the NYC Department of Education, and her salary is now 4 times more than before bootcamp!

Liz Eggleston

• Liz delved further into the question “are coding bootcamps worth it,” and put together (with Lauren’s help) a piece that fully answers this question with data, alumni perspectives, videos, and advice on how to get the most out of coding bootcamp!

Lauren Stewart

• Lauren was intrigued by Neha Gupta, a South Bay Hackbright Academy grad who was a doctor in naturopathic medicine before realizing she wanted a career that enabled her to solve more varied problems each day. She had family and friends who worked as engineers in the tech industry who supported her transition into tech.

FURTHER READING/LISTENING

• May 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• April 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup and Podcast
• Podcast: The GI Bill and Coding Bootcamps

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