Population 3,392, Water Valley, Mississippi, is home to an innovative organization that is helping break the cycle of small-town youth having limited access to high-wage jobs. In May, the first graduates of Base Camp Coding Academy—a free coding bootcamp for high schoolers—will have the knowledge, skills and confidence to get employed as software developers. We talked with Kagan Coughlin, Base Camp’s cofounder and executive director and one of the reasons Water Valley is beating its small-town odds. Here’s what he had to say about the program and the impact it’s having in Mississippi:

Why did you start Base Camp Coding Academy?

Because our young people are capable, and deserve an opportunity like this. And our business community needs their talent and passion now and in the future. And if all it takes is a little coordination to bring two parties together for their mutual benefit, how could you not?

Are people surprised to learn about a coding academy in Water Valley?

Yup.

What can you tell us about Base Camp Coding Academy’s first year?

Fourteen students started at Base Camp June 1, and 11 are on track to graduate May 6. The students have been fully capable of grasping the content, at speeds that exceeded our highest expectations. Students are cycling out of the classroom to spend a 40 hour work week job shadowing at area employers, like CSpire, Renasant Bank, FNC / CoreLogic, MTrade and NextGear.  They have been actively applying and interviewing with those companies, as well as with FedEx and Howard Industries. Our hope is that each student will have a solid job offer before they graduate on May 6.

Meanwhile, the support from the business, philanthropic and educational communities has been amazing. Beyond financial support, these groups have contributed time, hosted the students at their facilities to add to the educational experience, and mentored all of us.

Since it serves high schoolers, does Base Camp Coding Academy coincide with the school year?

Yes and no. On the front end we ask the students to forego their summer vacation after graduating from high school. They work 40 hours a week through the summer, and straight through the fall/winter/spring, to graduate in the ballpark of when other educational programs are letting out for the summer, or preparing for graduation. This is the time of year when many businesses are expecting to make new hires of college graduates; it seemed like a good idea to tap into that existing behavior.

Do these types of job opportunities exist in Water Valley, or is that kind of the point of coding, that it doesn’t matter where you are?  

There may be, and certainly in the future as these students grow their careers they will have the opportunity to work remotely. At this time we are focusing on the first step of their career with a regional employer.

What are your plans for the organization in the next year? Where do you see it in three years, five years?

We are actively vetting the incoming class, and have sufficient funding to accept 25 students to begin June 1. We are working through a three-year pilot. The success of the pilot is based on the success of the graduates in the work force, which takes several years to gauge. The goal is to have clear metrics in the third year, with two graduated classes gainfully employed. At that time, if the employers are pleased and the interest is strong in our high schools, we will start the work of fundraising and growing the program.

Students are nominated, right? What’s the criteria? Do you target any specific type of student, such as girls, minorities, underprivileged?

Where do you start looking for that smart, hard-working young person who does not have a viable opportunity to attend college? It was one of the most difficult challenges we faced, and we first went to education experts to ask for their ideas. Their idea was to ask them to help identify the students, as every teacher knows a student or three that fit the criteria we look for. Once students are nominated by a teacher we conduct interviews and have them complete an aptitude test.

Every student in Mississippi falls into a category that is considered underrepresented in the tech world; minority, women, underprivileged, and/or rural. We certainly spend a little extra effort reaching out to young women, as we have some significant stereotypes to educate around when it comes to who can be a great coder/software engineer.

What role does Base Camp Coding Academy play in preparing Mississippi’s workforce for these new tech-centric jobs?

We expect our students to come to us at a zero-experience-with-coding base-line, and we will bring them up to level-1-software-developer before they leave us. Each student who successfully walks this path will at a minimum educate their friends and family that this is a career that is possible. In time we hope to see awareness translate into inspiration, and programs like Base Camp, and the software departments at our existing higher education institutions, will be scrambling to provide these opportunities to every student who is willing to apply themselves.

We can only dream of the positive impacts a thriving talent pool will have on our business community, and our state as a whole.

Are Mississippi schools doing a good or bad job preparing students for these types of jobs?

I think the hard answer here is that for the most part they are not, simply because this field has not reached the radar of most of our K-12 institutions. We did not realize when we first set out to recruit students for Base Camp that we would first need to explain to the administrators and teachers what software development and coding is.

There are wonderful organizations that are working on building awareness, like Code.org. and in Mississippi there are groups that are running pilots inside high schools to incorporate coding into the curriculum. For example, North Mississippi Community College and Mississippi State are both pushing these initiatives. In many ways Base Camp and programs like it cheat by avoiding the inertia that larger education institutions must wrestle with.

The post Base Camp Coding Academy Gives Rural Mississippi Youth Access to New Career appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Haley Blackburn is an Alabama gal. Greenville, a town of about 8,000 people, was her birthplace, as well as where she spent most of her childhood. She also graduated in 2013 from the University of Alabama with a degree in hospitality management with a concentration in event planning.  

In the last few years, she’s also become part of Alabama that has been steadily growing: the tech community. How did she make this happen? A coding bootcamp in Birmingham.

“I started my career planning weddings and special events, but soon found that wedding planning was not what I saw myself doing long term,” says Blackburn. As she began her new career search, she first landed a job at Moxy, a Birmingham-based talent and creative agency.

It was at Moxy when she thought to check out a coding bootcamp at the nearby Innovation Depot. “I had taken an HTML/CSS course in college and enjoyed it, but had never considered it as a career. I decided to take a look at the pre-coursework and ended up loving it!”

Blackburn became part of the very first cohort of Depot/U, a ten-week coding bootcamp at Innovation Depot that was developed in partnership with Platypi, a digital marketing agency with a development focus. “I was a little nervous about making a career change, but the tuition was affordable, and I thought I may never get this opportunity again,” recalls Blackburn. “So it was time to go all in.”

After completing the bootcamp, an internship with several of her classmates at BBVA Compass followed. Then came the job offer as a front-end developer at Platypi. And she is now the program director for the very program that helped her enter the tech industry, albeit with a new twist.

Since the 2015 launch of the coding bootcamp at Innovation Depot, the program has 62 graduates and boasts a 90% employment within six months of graduation. And this 10-week bootcamp model, along with a one-week front-end fundamentals course, has now been rebranded to go beyond the Innovation Depot as Covalence. The name is inspired by the covalent bonds, and just as unstable atoms share electrons to achieve balance, Covalence plans to share its coding expertise with other states in order to balance the demand for skilled employees with a highly trained workforce on a regional and national scale.

The first expansion will take place in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and will operate in partnership with The Enterprise Center. The first bootcamp classes in Chattanooga will begin later this spring. (You can check out their free JavaScript crash course coming up on March 27.)

And Blackburn is enthusiastic to lead Covalence, especially because she understands the journey herself. “Learning to code has bettered my career in so many aspects. Taking this course was a huge risk for me, but I knew it was something I must do in order to make the change that I wanted for my career. I would not have the opportunities that I have today without Covalence.”

For anyone who is thinking about attending Covalence or any other coding program, Blackburn leaves a few words of advice: “If you are ready to make this career change, make sure you are ready to go all in. You will get out what you put in. Meet as many people in the industry as possible. Meetups, workshops and events are important, but the most important part is not only what you’ll learn but it’s the people you get the opportunity to meet and network with. The tech community is so awesome.”

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The hardest part of owning a startup is always the beginning: the process of turning your idea into a company with a working business model and appropriate funding. Luckily, there is a multitude of accelerator programs in the South available to entrepreneurs who want to launch their startups quickly.

Among the many nicknames given to Birmingham, Alabama, the Magic City is perhaps the most recognized. The moniker dates back to 1873 and refers to the city’s rapid growth. Nearly 150 years later that nickname is still really relevant, especially in light of the startup growth that’s occurring all around the city that is home to UAB’s world-class research and corporate giants like BBVA Compass, Regions Bank and Brasfield & Gorrie, to name a few.

And nowhere is this magic more apparent than at the Innovation Depot, the self-proclaimed epicenter for technology, startups and entrepreneurs in the Birmingham region. It’s home to all the usual innovation hub programs—there’s an incubator and membership-based co-working space. It also runs Depot/U, Birmingham’s first developer bootcamp, which offers both a one-week program that teaches the bare basics of programming concepts, as well as an intense 10-week “Full Stack” curriculum that will turn you into a junior level developer with excellent job prospects by the end—the next classes start in February. At the end of last year, Innovation Depot also launched Velocity Accelerator, the state’s first seed accelerator program, which is open to high-growth technology-oriented startups.

“I’ve spent time on the West Coast. Sure, it’s nice, but it’s expensive…and if you’re starting a company, you want the biggest bang for your buck,” explained Kathleen Hamrick, director of Innovation Depot’s Innovation Lab, in this AL.com post announcing the accelerator.

The 12-week program, which kicks off Jan. 18, provides $50,000 in seed funding to participants, in exchange for 6% equity. On Demo Day, participants will pitch to investors, giving them the opportunity to score a term sheet and qualify for follow-on funding.

Innovation Depot has already chosen its first cohort of 10 companies, which hail from places in the South and beyond. There’s Birmingham-based Healthfundit, a crowdfunding platform for medical research; Book-It Legal, an online marketplace that connects law firms to law students for research projects; and Planet Fundraiser, an app that makes everyday purchases a fundraising opportunity. Then there’s Likely AI, the startup traveling all the way from Slovakia and run by two former Facebook and Google interns. The company is developing an algorithm that identifies images that resonate most with an audience.

The post Accelerator Spotlight: Innovation Depot Brings State’s First Seed Accelerator to the Magic City appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Four Athens supports the startup ecosystem in Athens, Georgia, in a number of innovative ways. There’s the coworking and incubator space, accelerator program, meetups and mixers, and even the coding classes for kids and adults. It’s all in an effort to change the reality of this startling statistic: Despite the presence of Georgia’s largest public university (University of Georgia), Athens has a per capita income that is 23 percent lower than the state average.

We are not economists, but our belief is that there are a ton of low-wage, service industry-oriented jobs due to the large student population and a lack of ‘professional’ jobs in the area to retain qualified, higher paying employees,” explains Tamara Neff, head of community outreach and marketing for Four Athens. Here are some other highlights from a conversation we had with Neff about the cool things Four Athens is doing to support and encourage startups.

What would you say is Athens’ biggest challenge facing its startup ecosystem? Finding high-quality entrepreneurs who are excited to tackle the challenge of building big companies.

What about its biggest strength? And what makes Athens most unique from, say, another similarly sized ecosystem? We are a younger community, with a vibrant cultural scene that attracts a wide range of people. We are heavily focused on giving without expectation, and believe in helping to build each other up rather than competing outright. We are situated next to a very well-regarded research university which pumps out thousands of new graduates annually. These graduates go on to work throughout the world, and therefore those entrepreneurs who choose to stay and build a company here have an alumni network that is global. In addition, the research created by the university presents tons of commercial opportunities for the right entrepreneurs.

UGA is in Athens, but does that brainpower tend to go elsewhere? Like Atlanta? And what role can an organization like Four Athens play in keeping that talent in Athens? We believe in not only keeping talent local, but in connecting the global talent generated by UGA and harnessing it to help build companies locally. Those far-flung alumni can help with funding, mentorship, and introductions to potential customers.

What is Four Athens’ relationship with UGA? Is there a formal one? There is no formal relationship. We currently operate an Idea Accelerator, which is partially funded by UGA, and hold a twice annual Students2Startups event on campus to connect students to opportunities with local startup companies. We also work with tons of student entrepreneurs directly from the University.

Talk about the accelerator program. When is the next one? Four Athens’ accelerator program runs twice a year (fall and spring). The most recent cohort had nearly 40 applicants, and 12 teams finished the program. The next session begins in September 2016, and the application will go live July 1 at www.fourathens.com/accelerator.

Let’s talk about the coding classes Four Athens offers. What was the catalyst? There were two sparks to the program: (1) a need for talent within our growing companies and (2) a willingness of a few UGA students and community members to expand opportunities for people in the community to learn to code.

Some of the coding classes are offered in conjunction with local schools. When you talk to teachers about coding, are they coming from a place of basic knowledge? Not necessarily that they know how to code, but that they know what it is? Or, is it a situation where you’re blowing minds a little bit? Most people are familiar with the fact that technology is encroaching on all aspects of their lives, but they may not have stopped to think about how all-encompassing it is, and how it will continue to do so. So we talk about future opportunities for today’s students and paint the picture of a future where everyone will need to understand some facet of coding.

We host in-school and weekend classes that are not tied to any particular school. For instance, we are offering code classes during the weekend of Athfest, the big annual music festival in town linked to local education efforts more broadly, and continue to pursue strategic partnerships in the area to offer more classes. All our classes can be found at fourathens.com/classes and the youth classes specifically at https://www.fourathens.com/youthclasses/.

Has the response to your coding classes been greater than anticipated? The demand has been great. Satisfying the demand, particularly with a large portion of the population being lower income, has been challenging due to financial constraints. Many families understand the importance of tech education, but are simply unable to afford it. We have set up a scholarship fund to help offset the cost of our classes so that students can take advantage of these opportunities regardless of income level. More about our scholarship fund can be found here: www.fourathens.com/donate.

What about the adult classes? Are they comprehensive enough that someone could get a job coding after taking them? We currently teach introductory and intermediate level courses. Numerous students who have taken those two levels have subsequently been employed by local companies. As that base of talent grows, we will begin offering higher-level courses, internship programs and other opportunities to place people directly into open jobs in the community.

Finally, what’s the etymology of Four Athens? We started with the concept that you need four “people” to bootstrap a startup: as coined by Rei Inamoto at SXSW in March 2012, it takes a hipster, hacker and a hustler to build a good startup team. We think you also need the community at large (service providers, mentors, supporters and cheerleaders) to help in the journey, so we added and made it four. Plus, it’s a nice play on doing this “for” Athens.

The post The Company That’s Supporting and Encouraging Startups in Athens, Georgia appeared first on Startup Southerner.

More than 18 percent of young people in New Orleans are referred to as “opportunity youth,” young adults ages 16 to 24 who are disconnected from work or school. Tulane’s Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives estimates that this costs our city $360 million every year, and that “each percentage point reduction of opportunity youth in New Orleans would save taxpayers $20 million annually.”

Josh Cox

The reasons for disconnection are plentiful, ranging from homelessness, to caring for ailing parents or younger siblings, to unmet mental health needs. Poverty is the single common denominator that impacts all opportunity youth. Without a high school diploma or vocational training, they are effectively banished from prospects inside the legal economy that many of us take for granted. High school dropouts ages 16 to 24 years old were 63 times more likely to be locked up than those with a bachelor’s degree or higher and are three-and-a-half times more likely to be arrested than high school graduates.

This matters because the criminal justice system, where opportunity youth too often end up, makes no economic sense. It’s no secret that Louisiana is the prison capital of the world. Our state imprisons one in every 86 adults, nearly double the national average. The expense to taxpayers is exorbitant; our prisons cost $698.4 million per year.

Rob Lalka

Once convicted of a felony, ex-offenders must surmount collateral consequences before getting the chance to reintegrate into the legal economy and become taxpaying citizens. Collateral consequences are legal barriers that formerly incarcerated people experience after they’ve served their time; the American Bar Association estimates that there could be as many as 50,000 of them. Ex-offenders who want to do the right thing face an uphill climb. After being released, they cannot stay with relatives in public housing, receive state aid to get an education, qualify for a loan to start a business, or get a job in the oil and gas or shipping industries. Their efforts to ascend into the middle class thus require more than the dignity of hard work; they also need extremely good luck and a strong support system.

We cannot count on chance and good will anymore. Our high recidivism rates are pouring taxpayer dollars back into housing, clothing and feeding those we incarcerate again and again. This cycle is not only expensive, it wastes human capital and thus economic potential. For the good of our people, and for the good of our economy, we must find a better approach.

Louisiana must connect opportunity youth with meaningful employment prospects before they become ensnared in the criminal justice system and its abyss of collateral consequences. But government and nonprofits cannot address these issues alone, and we should stop expecting them to. The private sector needs to step up.

At last week’s Statewide Economic Development Summit, the first in a decade, Governor Edwards insisted, “Our most precious natural resource is not our land, timber, or even oil and gas. It is our people. We have to invest in education and training programs, which are synonymous with opportunity.” At a time where 3,000 positions in software development remain unfilled across our state, the New Orleans tech community has the chance to shift the paradigm for disconnected youth. That’s because tech offers a hidden weapon to create economic opportunity—coding.

When a customer uses an app or visits a website, they never know the race, gender, formal education, socioeconomic status or social networks of the person who did the coding. Coding is the one foreign language that can democratize opportunities for our neighbors who have been otherwise counted out. It can be a great equalizer.

Young coders can work hard and earn a livable wage without having to declare their criminal record, or even the grades on their high school report card, and they don’t have to take on the expense and the time out to attain a college degree. Plus, coding plugs New Orleanians into the global economy. Many apps on your Apple and Android phones were created by overseas programmers who knew American companies or entrepreneurs would need their services. Why not keep those jobs here? A great coder can work for anyone in the world from anywhere in the world. Once someone has the needed knowledge and skills, they only require an internet connection and a work ethic to succeed.

We can do this. New Orleans is one of two TechHire cities in the nation, thanks to our city’s CIO Lamar Gardere, Innovation Delivery Team Director Charles West, and many others in city leadership. We are incredibly fortunate to have nonprofits like The Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) and Operation Spark in our midst. They offer coding classes and bootcamps, where opportunity youth gain a baseline knowledge of website and app development. But what these impactful nonprofits cannot offer, and what is so desperately needed, is the chance for students to get real-world experience and training while simultaneously working their way out of poverty.

Tech companies in New Orleans should follow the example set by the General Electric (GE) Digital Solutions Technology Center. In 2013, GE launched the Software Engineering Apprenticeship Program (SWEAP) in partnership with the University of New Orleans to provide students with real-world software development work experience and intensive software industry training. They committed $1 million annually to the program, and the results have been astounding, with a 100 percent conversion rate from part-time apprenticeships into full-time positions. Unfortunately, they’re the exception in our economy.

That’s where you come in: Opportunity youth need paid apprenticeships. We aren’t under any illusions about the hard work this requires. Instituting an apprenticeship program at your company will have its challenges. Certainly, young coders could struggle to initially grasp unfamiliar coding concepts, adjust to corporate culture and deal with the barriers of poverty they are trying to escape. But no one is in this fight alone. If you answer the call, groups like YEP and Operation Spark will be your partners by providing the additional emotional support and mentorship to help our young people to add value to your company.

We challenge you to join the effort to reduce poverty, decrease the crippling expense of incarceration and recidivism, and grow the tax base in this city. Donate to Operation Spark and YEP, and sign up here to express your interest in longer-term partnerships with both of them. Together, we can provide opportunity youth the chance to apprentice, improve their coding skills and demonstrate the value they can add – not just to your company, but to our city. New Orleans cannot afford for you not to.

Don’t work for a New Orleans tech company but inspired to get involved? Collision raised $10,000 for Operation Spark in less than 24 hours by offering discounted tickets to its 2017 conference in New Orleans.  There are all kinds of ways to support the good people doing this great work, and we hope you will.

The post NOLA Tech Community, Let’s Give Opportunity Youth a Chance appeared first on Startup Southerner.

More than 16,000 students were expected to have graduated from approximately 70 coding bootcamps in the United States last year, according to Course Report’s 2015 Coding Bootcamp Survey. With the current and projected need to fill open tech positions around the South, the trend of building more coding bootcamps doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

We have mapped out the adult coding bootcamps that are currently operating in our southern states. The information for each location is currently basic, but we will continue to add more information in future versions.

*Click on the slider tab to the left to view the map by state.

Please help us keep this map updated! If you know of other coding bootcamps, please let us know by filling out the form below:

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