August 2021 Coding Bootcamp News

Table of Contents

• $29M IN FUNDRAISES + 1 MAJOR BOOTCAMP ACQUISITION
• REGULATORY EFFORTS FOR BOOTCAMP APPRENTICESHIPS
• 4 MEANINGFUL UNIVERSITY-BOOTCAMP PARTNERSHIPS
• THE LATEST ON BOOTCAMPS IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
• CREDENTIALS FOR ALTERNATIVE LEARNING
• BRIDGING THE TECH GAP
• 11 NEW SCHOOLS ADDED TO COURSE REPORT
• JESS & LIZ’S FAVORITE AUGUST BLOG POSTS

August was buzzing with news about the benefits of credentialing for alternative, skills-based learning. We’re sharing the latest on the Apprenticeship to College Act in Congress, and regional workforce development programs aimed at helping high school students and adult learners find tech roles through bootcamps in their communities. August also brought news of a $25M fundraise, an acquisition, two pivots in the bootcamp world, and one closure of a long-standing data science program. Plus, find out which 11 new bootcamps we added to the Course Report directory this month!

This August, we published our list of the Best UX Design Bootcamps and the Best Data Science Bootcamps – These are the data science and UX bootcamps that we would recommend to our friends and family, so check those out if you’re just starting your research process! 

Curious about what happened in July 2021? Check out last month’s episode with the biggest bootcamp news from July.

$29M IN FUNDRAISES + 1 MAJOR BOOTCAMP ACQUISITION

• TechCrunch reports that Product School raised a $25M Series A in growth equity investment
• Techround reports that HyperionDev raised over £2.5m through private investments and public crowdfunding.
• DigitalCrafts announced that they have been acquired by the American InterContinental University System this August.
• DigitalCrafts also made the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America.
• Techcrunch reports that Flockjay has cut at least half of its full-time workforce, and it is now pivoting away from its bootcamp program to target the B2B SaaS market.
• Galvanize announced they are sunsetting their data science bootcamps. 

REGULATORY EFFORTS FOR BOOTCAMP APPRENTICESHIPS

• EdSurge covered the new Apprenticeship Pathways pilot, which universities can sign on to accept those apprenticeships as college credit.
• According to WABE, City of Refuge is beginning the inaugural class of its Tech Transformation Academy, a program funded by a $5.4 million Department of Labor grant that offers participants professional web development and cybersecurity training.
• Yahoo! Finance reports that YearUp has partnered with Zip Code Wilmington to teach Java software programming and offer a paid internship to high school and college students.

4 MEANINGFUL UNIVERSITY-BOOTCAMP PARTNERSHIPS

• According to WKRN, Nashville State Community College has launched the Nashville State Coding Bootcamps, to help its community get the tech training they need to land tech roles. 
• The Monroe News-Star covered the free tech training programs offered by Operation Spark to Louisiana’s high school and adult learners. 
• According to the Rutland Herald, Community College of Vermont has partnered with Upright Education (whose CEO launched Burlington Code Academy) to launch tech bootcamps aimed at retraining rural Vermonters.
• The UK Star reports that The Developer Academy has been selected to offer skills bootcamps, which is part of the UK Government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Plan for Jobs. 

THE LATEST ON BOOTCAMPS IN WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

• The Washington Post published a report stating a third of U.S. workers under the age of 40 want a career change. 
• The Boston Globe published a meaty piece about the big reboot and compared the job training system of 2020 to that of the 1960s. David Delmar Sentíes, the founder of Boston-based Resilient Coders, says that as remote work is normalized, the tech industry will start to see more leveling out of salaries across regions and states.
• Tech Republic interviewed Flatiron School CEO Adam Enbar to discuss what bootcamps are doing to alleviate the tech skills gap right now. Enbar says that bootcamps will gain more of a foothold on meeting the tech skills gap because of their student outcomes. 
• Chloe Rittenhouse from Guild Education contributed an article in HR Dive about how time poverty disproportionately affects the most vulnerable working populations — the same ones who have the most to gain from education programs.

CREDENTIALS FOR ALTERNATIVE LEARNING

• EdSurge covered the Open Skills Network, a coalition of over 530 employers, educational institutions, and technology providers, which just had its first Virtual Skills Summit on how to prepare and empower a stronger workforce here in the US.
• EdSurge highlighted how well online education platforms aimed at adult learners, such as 2U are doing since the pandemic began. 

BRIDGING THE TECH GAP

• The Denver Channel highlighted the Represent Tech Scholarship program from Tech Elevator. So far, the scholarship has covered tuition for 135 Tech Elevator students!
• In a guest post for CIO Dive, Roz Ho, VP and Global Head of Software at HP, pointed out that many tech training programs are aimed at girls or young women just launching their careers, and there are not enough aimed at mid-career professional women making a career change or upskilling.
• Flatiron School announced a new $1500 scholarship through EssentialWorkers.com this August, which is now accepting applications.
• Coding Dojo partnered with The Prison Scholar Fund to offer tuition-free tech training with a living stipend to formerly incarcerated individuals.
• Perficient has again partnered with Hackbright Academy to offer BrightPaths cohorts in Detroit, Michigan and Lafayette, Louisiana – these are free to students!!
• OfferUp announced the OfferUp Tech Career Empowerment Scholarship, which includes a partnership with coding bootcamp, Ironhack. 

11 NEW SCHOOLS ADDED TO COURSE REPORT

• According to the Missoula Current, the Montana Code School has relaunched in an online format after going dark during the pandemic.
• UT Dallas has partnered with Fullstack Academy to launch four new bootcamps in cybersecurity, coding, DevOps, and data analytics.

We also added these 11 new schools to our directory:

• Satellite
• Select Institute of Technology
• Eduson Academy
• Elevate Hire
• Aspireship
• Vidhya Analytics
• Astrolabs
• Bitlabs Academy
• Henry Harvin Education
• Skillspire
• USF Bootcamps (powered by Springboard)

JESS & LIZ’S FAVORITE AUGUST BLOG POSTS

Jess loved speaking with General Assembly’s Social Impact Hackathon winners – Jess, Shane, and Scott – who gave us a walk-through of their winning project, Serenity. These GA alumni also shared really good advice on how to make an online immersive program work for you and what to expect from General Assembly’s career services.  

Liz enjoyed interviewing Designlab bootcamp graduate, Jack, who enrolled in Designlab only after one year of researching different UX design bootcamps. Jack chose Designlab because mentorship was important to him, and Designlab offered more facetime with mentors, alumni, and fellow students.