Kamis, 16 April 2015

Flatiron School looks to teens to ease computer coder shortage

There's a dire shortage of computer programmers in the US — and a New York-based firm is heading directly to the nation's high schools to change that.

The Flatiron School, a for-profit group that has been offering intensive courses in web and mobile development since 2012, has raised $9 million as it looks to aggressively expand its computer-coding education programs at high schools.

"There's no infrastructure for this," co-founder Adam Enbar said of high-school coding classes. "No teachers, no curriculum, no software, no after-school support. There's this huge demand in the market but nobody knows how to do this."

Flatiron School, which raised $5.5 million last year, will roll out intensive courses for high schoolers in eight cities this summer — a move that it expects will shift the majority of its business to the high-school level.

Participants this summer will include the Dalton School on the Upper East Side.

To date, Flatiron School has built its reputation with an adult-training program that boasts a 99-percent job-placement rate for its grads, who have started off with salaries averaging $74,000.

The course costs $15,000 and the acceptance rate is 6 percent, but scholarships are available for NYC students who lack four-year college degrees.

Backers in the latest funding round included Thrive Capital, the venture-capital firm headed by Joshua Kushner. Flatiron School also recently partnered with Kushner's supermodel girlfriend, Karlie Kloss, and DoSomething.org to offer scholarships for teens interested in coding.


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