Hi Patrick, Thank you for stopping by our video! 

Our TechShare program in the high schools provides an onramp to the coding academies and to higher ed. Working with school administrators, we are trying to generate interest in computing in high school seniors before they graduate, with a goal of them transitioning into a coding academy or higher ed for further skills development. By introducing this content while they are still in high school, we seek to develop self-efficacy, interest, and excitement with computing in the learners who might otherwise not see this as a pathway.

We are non-profit training entity than owns a software development company; more often we see a for-profit that develops a training arm.  Right now, as we are in start-up bootstrap mode, we are employing six of our learners in part-time positions.

MS CodeWorks is starting with front-end web design, including the research site for the Eudora Welty Foundation. We expect to grow into more complex projects over time.  With Amazon AWS Educate, we will be a single, direct path from their first lines of code to Senior Dev Ops Engineer.  Over 40 companies and 60 IT professionals have partnered with us for guest lectures, evaluations of coders; over 40 companies have hired our coders.

Thanks Rich, for sharing this information. And thank you Marion for visiting our video! Rich is a critical member of our leadership team for MS CodeWorks. 

Hi Laura, Thank you for stopping by our video. Access to broadband internet is something I am very passionate about!

We are demonstrating that tech is not just for Silicon Valley & Alley. We add to the public recognition that broad band investment is spending that facilitates a proven local capability. That proof has come through:

• Enabling underserved recent high school grads in Mississippi to become full-stack coders in 11-months (almost 100 so far)
• Being one of 10 finalists out of 190 submissions in MIT Solve Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the US, and
• Being among 10 teams out of 118 Qualifying Submissions from 360 teams in XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling.

Our Jackson MS site transitioned from face-to-face to virtual almost seamlessly in March 2020 because the local cable company have provided $8 a month internet to low-income families.  (They, COMCAST, also funded our evening program.) Our Golden Triangle site had a greater rural student base, demonstrating the need for rural broadband when forced to convert to virtual due to COVID restrictions.

Abigail, thank you so much for stopping by our video. Rich Sun, another member of the MS Coding Academy leadership team, offered some great information in the comment below in response to your question. I would love to hear more about your projects that align with this work.

One project is explained in our video. The other is looking at Ohio's network of technical centers. They have really high completion and placement rates vs. Ohio's community colleges. We're trying to learn what strategies they're using to help learners overcome barriers and support them from enrollment through program completion and job placement. 

Hi Megan,

Thank you for stopping by our video! The Mississippi Coding Academies model was based on Basecamp Coding Academy (https://basecampcodingacademy.org/), also located in Mississippi, with attention to scaling. 

By mobilize, do you mean scaling? We have been evaluating options for replicating the program outside of Mississippi. Let me know if I missed the point of that second question!