Many people feel they have been, or will soon be, left behind by the importance of technology in our economy. There’s also a growing concern about the impact technology will have on business and society. Automation will displace or completely replace large amounts of workers, but it will also create a higher demand for mid- and high-skill jobs, most of which will require some level of coding knowledge.
Due to the rapid pace of technological change and the rising cost of a four-year degree, traditional education has become a less feasible and less effective option to receive the proper technology training -- especially for career changers.
Coding Dojo is a leading coding education company that offers a three-full-stack programming bootcamp, as well as courses on Data Science and other emerging technologies. Our innovative curriculum and learning management system are designed to train students to become self-sufficient developers, regardless of their technical background.
Our mission is transforming lives through programming literacy. To do so, we continually create initiatives and other opportunities to expand access to our curriculum and provide support to women, minorities, veterans, and other underserved communities.
By offering comprehensive and affordable coding bootcamp programs, Coding Dojo is addressing the growing skills gap and empowering individuals to pursue meaningful careers in the digital economy.
Throughout 2019, we launched multiple initiatives, partnerships, and campaigns to make the technology training more inclusive and accessible. For example, Coding Dojo partnered with the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership to launch Chicago Codes. Chicago Codes is a full-time and tuition-free coding bootcamp on Chicago's South Side that identifies tech talent in underserved communities, trains them, and places them in paid internships with local companies. We also works with Rwanda Girls to train local college-age females, Innovation Centre Kosovo for Kosovoan women, and various other non-profit and social-good organizations.
Additionally, we regularly host free or low-cost Intro to Programming workshops to provide an overview of basic programming concepts. We've partnered with numerous organizations to open up these workshops to various communities. For example, when we partnered with the Skagit County STEM Network to sponsor 30 high school girls to attend the workshop and discover their passion for coding.
We've also launched various initiatives to support in-need workforces. For example, the Teaching Washington Teachers and Teaching Chicago Teachers scholarships that aim to help educational professionals who were impacted by budgetary shortfalls by offering nearly $1M in tuition assistance. We plan to roll out similar programs in our other markets in the near future.
Coding Dojo has awarded $450,000 of scholarships and tuition assistance in 2019, mostly to women, minorities, or other individuals with severe obstacles and hardships.
Our bootcamp program has tangible, life-changing impacts on students. Notable 2019 examples include:
Shannon Lance, single mother of four children who took our program after an abrupt separation with her husband. With few other options to financially support her family, Shannon dedicated herself to the program - sometimes seeing her children for only 15 minutes a day. Within six days of graduating, Shannon landed a six-figure salary with SAP Concur.
Yamin Hakizimana, an African refugee who was working as a landscaper and at a meat-packing plant in Boise, Idaho. With some help from friends, the community, Coding Dojo, and non-profit organizations, Yamin enrolled in the bootcamp even though he had never typed on a computer before. He passed with flying colors and landed a mid-level developer job with VYNYL less than a month after graduating.
Austin Parham, a former cruise director and marketer who took the Coding Dojo program in Dallas with little computer experience and was hired by Amazon as a QA Technician shortly after graduating.
To date, Coding Dojo has trained more than 4,500 developers who go on to get hired by start-ups and world-class companies like Expedia, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, DocuSign and Skytap.
