Episode 21: November 2017 Bootcamp News

On the Course Report Coding Bootcamp News Roundup, we keep you up to date with the blossoming coding bootcamp industry. This November, we're covering the WeWork/Flatiron School acquisition, over $2M in funding to various bootcamps, and why tech is booming in "Heartland" cities. Of course we also look at new schools, new campuses, and our favorite pieces to work on this month for the Course Report blog! Plus, is The Iron Yard back from the dead? Read the summary or listen to the podcast.

Top News

Listen: 2:02

• New York City has released a set of guidelines for coding schools to follow which covers transparency, job assistance, and loan guidance.
  Wyncode in Florida also put out their 2017 Outcomes Report.
• Forbes looked at the WeWork/Flatiron School acquisition in more detail, and AmericanInno reported that Flatiron School is opening a new campus at a WeWork location in Washington DC.
• Coworking space Knotel has teamed up with Galvanize coding bootcamp to share customers and education resources.
• Two former execs of The Iron Yard, a bootcamp which closed down earlier this year, are opening Momentum Learning in Durham, North Carolina.

The Current Status of the Bootcamp Industry

Listen: 6:17

• The Post Gazette, MyStatesman and CBS looked at research from the Brookings Institute, which shows that more and more jobs are requiring digital skills.
• Tech.co looks in general at the demand for tech skills, and how that has spawned the coding bootcamp industry.
• An EdSurge columnist writes that “We don’t need more alternatives to college,” suggesting that instead, we need “supplements to college,” and gives the example of Trilogy Education which creates bootcamps within universities.
• IBM was in the news about why it wants to hire employees who don’t have a 4-year college degree, and instead wants to see more people with vocational training from institutes like coding bootcamps.
• A guest post by Signafire co-founder Steve Davis in App Developer Magazine looks at how developers from non-traditional backgrounds, can provide more diverse ideas, and change how the industry thinks.
• Stack Overflow gives advice on how to know if you should go to bootcamp.

Investments in Coding Bootcamps

Listen: 10:48

• Kenzie Academy has raised $1.6m in seed round from investors including 500 Startups, Rethink Education, and LearnStart.
• Google.org is donating $1 million to the Hidden Genius project in Oakland which helps mentor young black men in tech. 
• Singapore coding bootcamp UpCode Academy has raised $220,000 in seed funding.
• Code Platoon has received a $100,000 grant from The Boeing Corporation, to help expand its program staff and increase recruitment and education initiatives.

Cities Tapping into Coding Talent

Listen: 12:43

• Byron August, who was a Deputy Director in President Obama’s White House Administration, and is now the CEO of Opportunity at Work, wrote a piece for Venture Beat looking at how companies in heartland cities like Kansas City, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Detroit can grow their tech economies by tapping into the capable but overlooked and underrepresented tech talent pools right in their own backyard. 
• Patrick Sisson from Curbed wrote about how technology is changing society, but education and local economic development initiatives aren’t keeping pace. He suggests that cities expand training and apprenticeship programs, subsidize slots at coding schools, and support organizations as well as hackathons that encourage and support diversity in tech.
• WYMT & CBS looked at Pittsburgh coding bootcamp Mined Minds, which helps former coal miners transition from mining to coding. They are closing down after the state issued a cease and desist letter unless they were licensed as a school in Pennsylvania.
• SwissInfo highlights how Coding schools are cropping up in Switzerland as a fast track to in-demand jobs and how some bootcamps are focused on helping refugees looking for a career change. 

Students Share Their Bootcamp Experiences

Listen: 17:53

• A Gainesville Dev Academy student wrote about her experience for the Gainesville Sun, where she learned that failure is actually important to help you grow.
• A Grace Hopper Program grad writes about her job hunting experience for HackerNoon, and how she landed a job at The New York Times.
• Technically DC profiled Coding Dojo student Ausar McGruder, who was a model in New York for years but went to coding bootcamp to make an impact in tech.
• The Vancouver Sun profiles a man who managed to escape poverty and a homeless shelter by taking a free 5-week, 11-hour per day intensive coding bootcamp.

Coding Bootcamps Highlighted in November

Listen: 19: 26

• CNN published a story titled “Coding school wants to stop people from joining ISIS” about Belgian coding school MolenGeek which is building a community to help prevent locals from becoming radicalized. 
• Geekwire profiled tech apprenticeship program Apprenti which matches qualified applicants with tech companies and provides free coding instruction through coding bootcamps.
• Mena FN profiles ReBootKamp for refugees in Amman, Jordan, a four-month program which covers soft skills as well as coding skills, and offers deferred tuition until graduates find a job.
• The Africa Report covered Andela by looking at the story of a young college graduate who was trained in outdated technologies, so she enrolled at Andela in 2014 and is now an engineer at Everplans. The piece looks deeper at the impact Andela is having on the African continent. 
• ABC 4 Utah profiles DevMountain, and the Herald Extra looks at how DevMountain is launching two new Salesforce courses, one for developers and one for administrators.

New Bootcamp Programs and Campuses

Listen: 23:40

• eLearningInside describes Steve Wozniak’s WozU bootcamp as being “part of” the Southern Careers Institute, a for-profit educational institution, and looks at how the lack of information about actual tuition costs has only increased the skepticism some have expressed.
• South Bend Code school is expanding to Fort Wayne and Goshen.
  According to Upwork, Ironhack is looking for a new lead instructor! 
• Businesswire shares that San Diego-based Origin Code Academy is switching to a blended learning model where all instruction is online with periodic in-class instruction.
• Australian college RMIT University is rolling out Apple’s app development and Swift curriculum.
• Canadian based Lighthouse Labs is launching a new part-time front-end fundamentals course for people who work full-time to boost digital skills of managers, marketers, and designers.
• Graduates of Deep Dive Coding bootcamp can now receive their completion certificates via blockchain ledgers to avoid the risk of forgeries, and allow grads to provide easily verifiable credentials to potential employers. 
• According to Philly Mag and Philly BizJournals, Trilogy bootcamp is opening at the University of Pennsylvania. This will be Trilogy’s 28th partnership.
• Code Bootcamp, a 3-month web development course, is launching in Augusta, Georgia.

New Schools Added to Course Report this Month:

• Burlington Code Academy in Burlington, Vermont
• Bogotá Bootcamp in Bogotá, Columbia 

Favorite Pieces on the Blog

Listen: 27:05

Imogen Crispe

• Imogen spoke to Dustin at Allstate Insurance about why he has hired 6 grads from the Designation UX/UI bootcamp in Chicago, and why insurance companies need UX designers.

Liz Eggleston

• Jeff Casimir from Turing School walked Liz through how an application gets developed from business requirements, to front end, to back end, to data and ops, and explained how to decide which part of the stack is right for you.

Lauren Stewart

• Lauren enjoyed listening to Liz moderate the Building Diversity in Bootcamps podcast with the COO of Flatiron School Kristi Jordan, and a Flatiron Grad now Spotify iOS Engineer, Susan Lovaglio.

FURTHER READING

• October 2017 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• September 2017 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• August 2017 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast

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

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.