November 2019 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup

Table of Contents

• Bootcamp Acquisitions & Fundraises & Layoffs
• Acquisition Updates:
• Legal/Regulatory News
• New Bootcamps + Campuses
• Cybersecurity Bootcamps
• How Bootcamps are Impacting Diversity in Tech
• Student + Alumni Success after Bootcamp
• Advice for Getting Hired after Bootcamp
• News about Income Share Agreements (ISAs)
• The Future of Education
• New Markets
• 7 New Schools on Course Report

November was full of news about fundraises (and layoffs) and updates on past acquisitions like Trilogy and Thinkful. We’re also covering news about credentialing in bootcamps, a partnership between Wyncode and General Assembly, advice for data science bootcamp graduates about what to study after graduation, and 3 new bootcamps in Spain. And congrats to CodeClan – celebrating its 4th birthday this November! 

Note: There’s no podcast episode this month, but look out for our big End of Year Podcast!

Bootcamp Acquisitions & Fundraises & Layoffs

• Moringa School in Kenya has received some investment from DOB Equity – they don’t specify how much the investment is for (weird!) but do say that this investment comes after Moringa School had been fined last month for an unauthorized buyout.

• Kenzie Academy in Indianapolis has secured a $100 million debt investment from Community Investment Management to cover the operating costs associated with students who defer payment through ISAs. TechCrunch looks at Kenzie Academy’s plans for the future.

• According to a paywalled article on Business Insider, Pathrise, a training program for people looking to break into tech, announced its $3.2 million seed funding in November.

• According to EdSurge, Cybrary has landed a $15 Million Series B round to train students in cybersecurity.

• WeWork laid off around 80 Flatiron School staff members as part of a larger round of WeWork layoffs. Business Insider also points out that WeWork was sending alarming non-compete letters to laid off workers.

• Fullstack Academy’s parent company, Zovio, is set to lay off 300 positions according to Education Dive. This is part of their sale/separation of Ashford University and doesn’t seem to be impacting Fullstack Academy. 

Acquisition Updates:

• 2U defends their purchase of Trilogy.

• We get some insight into the Chegg/Thinkful $80M acquisition in an EdSurge article written by Wade Tyler Millward. Here’s what we learned:

  • Chegg is still integrating their tools with Thinkful’s curriculum

  • Thinkful will remain focused on consumer training – The corporate training route some bootcamps have pursued is too competitive and not worth the profits, which are typically shared with a brand-name university supplying the curriculum, he said.

  • They see their competitive advantage as (1) lower price-point and (2) student data informing their offerings.

Legal/Regulatory News

• Woz U coding school associated with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has agreed to relinquish its license in Arizona next year.

New Bootcamps + Campuses

• Zip Code Wilmington is launching a new data engineering program in Wilmington, Delaware.

• Bellevue College’s Continuing Education division is partnering with Coding Dojo to create a 12-week program in Python development. Coding Dojo is also hiring a new instructor!

• Fullstack Academy has partnered with the University of San Diego to organize the university’s first cyber bootcamp

• Fullstack Academy is also partnering with the University of North Florida to launch a six-month, 500-hour coding program this fall.

• Trilogy Education has launched a new FinTech bootcamp at UNC Charlotte.

• Delta V Code School is launching a Nights and Weekends program in an effort to make its program more accessible.

• Lambda School is partnering with Modern Health to provide students with free access to meditation resources, an online wellness program, and sessions with a therapist.

• General Assembly is launching in Miami – and partnering with Wyncode to do it! The Miami Herald looks at different ways to learn to code and get into tech in Miami including GA and Wyncode. Wyncode co-founder Juha Mikkola says “We’re proud that General Assembly has chosen Wyncode as their preferred education partner in Miami to support their online community of learners. Through this partnership, we will be able to highlight the many ways individuals can launch a new career in the South Florida tech community, either by learning with us in person or online with GA.”

• Galvanize is partnering with the City of New York to offer a data analyst training program. Upon completion, students will get the opportunity to present their Capstone Project at a hiring day event attended by employers from New York City.

• Crains Detroit reports that General Assembly is opening a location in Detroit. Salamanca Press reports GA has expanded its GI Bill offering to Seattle

• Open Source Saturday recently launched as a gap program for coding bootcamp graduates in San Diego. Co-founder Kevin Brewer says “There are a lot of coding boot camps out there … and they’re not quite ready for the workforce. The idea was to give people an on-ramp post-boot camp, pre first job to give them practical experience.” They’re partnering with San Diego Code School, SoftStack Factory, and Learn Academy.

Cybersecurity Bootcamps

• According to the Wall Street Journal, NYC companies plan to hire more cybersecurity workers in 2020.

• Tech Republic looks at how bootcamps can help fill the demand for cybersecurity specialists, interviewing the managing director of Fullstack Academy’s cybersecurity bootcamp and explaining NYC’s Cyber NYC initiative to fund cybersecurity training in the city.

How Bootcamps are Impacting Diversity in Tech

• Jaxenter profiles successful women in tech, including Karen Hoyos who went to 9-week coding bootcamp Le Wagon and now works as a backend software engineer for Babbel.

• Shift, a military career change company backed by Andreessen Horowitz, has launched a partnership with Lambda School to help veterans launch new careers in tech. The program is made possible through a philanthropic fund in partnership with EdAid Foundation that helps reduce the cost of nontraditional education programs not covered by the GI Bill.

• How two entrepreneurs built SV Academy (a Sales Bootcamp for underrepresented groups) – and got tech companies to pay for it. 

Student + Alumni Success after Bootcamp

• Technically Delaware profiles a Zip Code Wilmington grad, who is launching his own software development and technical training firm.

• MidlandU looks at the success of graduates from the Code Academy in Omaha, highlighting grads who landed jobs right after graduating, and are filling a demand for tech workers in the area.

• The first class of 25 students has graduated from a partnership between Cayman Enterprise City, the University College of the Cayman Islands and Code Fellows.

• Rewire looks at whether coding bootcamps are “worth it” and compares online vs in-person, dissects employment guarantees, and looks at whether people need a degree to get into tech

Advice for Getting Hired after Bootcamp

• Celine Chu Gauchey, a software engineer at JP Morgan Chase writes for Fast Company about how she got a job without a computer science degree, starting by attending Fullstack Academy! Celine says “during my time at Fullstack Academy, I got tons of hands-on experience building apps and writing code. Rolling up my sleeves and diving into this work further solidified my interest in pursuing software engineering as my full-time career.” Read her other five strategies for landing a job without a computer science degree.

• David Yerrington, a former data science bootcamp instructor, offers advice about 5 things to study after you graduate from a data science bootcamp:

  • How to scope projects that demonstrate business impact

  • Knowing enough SQL to pass job interviews

  • Working with “big data”

  • General engineering and software development lifecycle management

  • ETL and workflow automation toolsets

• CNBC features 3 interview mistakes that can hurt your chances of getting hired, according to a JPMorgan executive. 

• Information Week has advice for CIOs who are trying to solve their talent deficit and hire more technical talent. Instead of just investing in recruitment advertising, they suggest that you invest in technical training for current employees and develop pathway programs for more junior applicants. Both tips are very relevant to the bootcamp industry!

News about Income Share Agreements (ISAs)

• Purdue University’s ISA program – Back a Boiler – has just funded it’s 1,000th contract. One important fact: the salary threshold at which a Purdue graduate must begin paying back their ISA is $20,000/year. Most bootcamp ISAs have a salary threshold closer to $40,000-60,000/year. 

• The Hindustan Times explores ISA programs, including what they are, how they work at universities, and their potential challenges (ahem: regulation!)

• A new Bengaluru-based coding school called Masai School has launched an ISA program, Maisai School follows a military-style 996 intensive working hour system: students work from 9am–9pm, all six days a week.

• The Daily Utah Chronicle explores student loans and ways to pay for school – when it comes to ISAs, financial counselor Tiffany Davis advises “If you don’t work for the next seven to 10 years after graduation, ISAs are a great deal. On the other hand, you may end up repaying more than you would with a traditional student loan. Some people think of an ISA as insurance — that if you can’t find employment after school, you don’t have to pay back what you borrowed with this agreement.”

The Future of Education

• Megan Hansen, the research director at The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University writes about the future of education, pointing out that the return on investment for coding bootcamps is much higher than four year degrees.

• Education Dive reports on a new Gallup poll that finds most (57%) graduates of non-degree vocational and technical programs strongly agreed their education was worth the price. That's compared to 50% of respondents with graduate degrees, 48% with associate degrees and 40% with bachelor's degrees who say the same.

• Luxembourg Tech School founder Sergio Coronado is hoping project-based learning--addressing real business problems--will be the solution to developing the digital leaders of tomorrow.

• According to Ledger Insights, IBM announced the launch of a blockchain credentials platform called the Learning Credential Network (LCN) which hopes to streamline hiring processes with verifiable certificates from coding bootcamps along with conventional degrees.

New Markets

• The Houston Chronicle looks at the demand for tech skills in Houston, quoting Lauren Bauml from Flatiron School Austin and Houston: “The number of open tech jobs is at an all-time-high and is not anticipated to slow down any time soon; yet, the talent capable of filling those jobs is not keeping pace,” she said. “There is a huge opportunity for people to break into the growing tech industry here in Houston.”

• The Kuwait Times explores the popularity of coding as a profession in Kuwait, highlighting the bootcamp Coded, the first coding bootcamp in the Middle East.

• Right Management and Grand Circus partnered to provide skills training to accelerate Michigan's technology industry

• French bootcamp Wild Code School launched in Dublin in November and is offering five full scholarships to women interested in becoming coders.

• Here’s an interview with Mark Smith, Vice President of Growth and Partnerships at Coding Dojo. And Thrive Global profiles Coding Dojo founder Michael Choi.

7 New Schools on Course Report

• The Bridge in Madrid
• Quickstart (Online) – which also operates the new Northeastern Illinois University Bootcamps
• DevRepublik in Ukraine
• BBK Bootcamp in Bilbao, Spain
• Attain U (Online)
• Aticco Code School in Barcelona