October 2020 Coding Bootcamp News

Table of Contents

• BOOTCAMP ACQUISITIONS & FUNDRAISES
• NEW WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIPS
• SCHOLARSHIPS TO BRIDGE THE TECH GAP
• 3 NEW CAMPUSES IN OCTOBER
• 10 NEW SCHOOLS ON COURSE REPORT

This October, workforce development was on everyone’s minds. In this new roundup, we’re covering the latest initiatives to lift up unemployed Americans and avoid a K-shaped economic recovery (we also included all of these initiatives in our new Guide to Workforce Development Grants). We’re also happy to cover several new scholarships to boost diversity in tech and new campuses, including two university-coding bootcamps. Plus, a bit of news from our team – Course Report released the 2020-2021 Best Coding Bootcamps list this October!

Curious about what happened in September? Check out last month’s episode with the biggest bootcamp news from September 2020.

BOOTCAMP ACQUISITIONS & FUNDRAISES

• EdSurge reports that Podium Education announced $12 million in Series A funding.

• CodeBoxx has appointed Meg Charles as their new Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer.

• This month, Pluralsight acquired DevelopIntelligence and terms of the deal were not disclosed

NEW WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIPS

• Check out our roundup of workforce development grants, partnerships, and dollars that are available to bootcampers in the US!

• EdSurge piece points out that education is also deeply affected by this year’s K-shaped economic recovery.

• The Washington Post looks at the risks and rewards of the Covid Career Makeover, and highlights recent bootcamp graduates from Tech Elevator, Tech Talent South, and Wyncode.

• USA Today says 12 million people have contacted their local career centers this year. Many unemployed workers are now pivoting into tech through online digital skills bootcamps like Coding Dojo and Udemy. Of the 350 students in Coding Dojo’s July 2020 cohort, 46% of the cohort reported being affected by the pandemic through layoffs and reduced hours.

• CNBC reported that Per Scholas is now working with Amazon and their AWS re/Start program, which aims to help unemployed and underemployed people.

• Technical.ly Delaware highlights Delaware’s newly launched Forward Delaware, which joins together state, business and education leaders to develop certification programs that take 20 weeks or less to complete. Forward Delaware is funded by the CARES Act, with some of that funding going to Code Differently, a coding education program based in Wilmington, for its Return Ready program, which is a multi-tiered coding camp and job placement program available to adult Delawareans. 

• According to Inside Indiana Business, Eleven Fifty Academy is partnering with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and its Hiring Our Heroes campaign to help train military veterans.

• Cayman Compass reports that Cayman Code Academy will offer a cybersecurity course, sponsored by Cayman Enterprise City and powered by Code Fellows. This programming falls under the Enterprise Cayman workforce development initiatives and there is a financial assistance fund to cover the cost of tuition. 

SCHOLARSHIPS TO BRIDGE THE TECH GAP

• A recent Women in the Workplace study conducted by McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.Org found that as many as 2 million women are currently considering taking a leave of absence or leaving the workforce altogether due to the challenges the pandemic has presented. The study warns that the absence of so many women from the workforce could set women back a half-decade in terms of gender parity. 

• Fast Company covered a recent report from Girls Who Code about the reason that half of women who work in tech will leave the industry by age 35. 37% of women interviewed cited inclusivity issues as the primary reason they left the tech workforce. 

• LearningFuze partnered up with fintech firm BeSmartee to launch a new scholarship and mentorship program for women. 

• Are you a woman thinking of getting into tech? Check out our roundup for coding bootcamp scholarships for women!

• A new, 10-week bootcamp program called You Are TechY just launched for moms who are considering a career-change into UX design. 

• In partnership with 2U and Norfolk University, Netflix has launched its first-ever Virtual HBCU Boot Camp, a program for students and recent alumni from Norfolk State University. 

• Earlier this year, Morehouse College partnered with Momentum to offer the coding bootcamp, Momentum@Morehouse. Momentum@Morehouse in its online format has expanded to accept students from outside of Atlanta.

• Technical.ly Baltimore did an excellent roundup of coding bootcamp programs that students in Baltimore can take advantage of now, including coding bootcamps Nucamp and the Coding Boot Camp at Johns Hopkins Engineering.

• TechRepublic published a piece about The Last Mile, an education and entrepreneurial program that teaches coding and software design in prison facilities across the US, in order to create career pathways for individuals who will re-enter society. 

• The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Goldie Blumenstyk posted a think piece investigating the question, “Will this end up being a lost year for students educationally?” The piece highlights Dominican University of California’s partnership with coding bootcamp, Make School.

3 NEW CAMPUSES IN OCTOBER

• Fullstack Academy has teamed up with University of Illinois - Chicago to offer live, online coding and cybersecurity bootcamps.

• Promineo Tech has partnered with College of Southern Nevada to bring affordable, coding bootcamps to Southern Nevada. 

• Lighthouse Labs has partnered with Saskatchewan Polytechnic to bring new bootcamp programs in web development, data science and data analytics to the region.

10 NEW SCHOOLS ON COURSE REPORT

In October, we added 10 schools to our Course Report school listings:

• Nashua Community College Coding Boot Camp 

• College of Southern Nevada Coding Boot Camp

• Old Dominion University Digital Skills Bootcamp

• Santa Clara University Boot Camp

• Michigan State University Digital Skills Bootcamp

• University of New Hampshire UX/UI Design Bootcamp

• GrowthX 

• AptusLearn

• Edukolkata 

• TechSwitch

This month, Jess really enjoyed pulling together a guide on Excel for Data Analytics with Thinkful Data Analytics Instructor Stephanie Jones.

Liz’s favorite piece to work on in October was a comparison between Data Engineering vs. Data Science vs. Machine Learning Engineering, which she pulled together with Jonathan Heyne, VP and General Manager of Data and Engineering Programs at Springboard.