We’re thrilled to announce that Hackbright Academy is officially partnering with the White House for President Obama’s launch of TechHire. The new program is a bold public-private initiative to empower Americans with the technical skills they need through various educational approaches.
To kick off TechHire, 20 regions with open technology jobs, and more than 300 employers, are announcing plans to work together to create more tech training opportunities. Hackbright Academy will commit staff technical assistance and travel time to engage with pilot communities interested in starting or recruiting coding schools.
“We’re honored to join President Obama and the White House in ensuring more Americans, especially women and underrepresented minorities, have the technical skills to fill the country’s needs,” said CEO David J. Phillips.
Only 14 percent of computer science grads today are women. Hackbright Academy is graduating more female engineers than Stanford and University of California, Berkeley combined each year. By selecting to partner with Hackbright Academy, the White House assures that the tech initiative includes women in what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry.
“Creating a federal initiative that supports diversity will make an impact on the country’s historical gender gap in tech,” said Angie Chang, VP at Hackbright Academy.
The academy was one of the nation’s original coding schools and has already received major support from the technology industry, partnering with tech giants such as Facebook, Ebay, Pinterest, and SurveyMonkey — all which have hired directly from the academy to fill their high-demand tech positions.
“One of the massive benefits of the coding schools is there are qualifying people who are smart, hard working, and are brave to make a life change,” said Selina Tobaccowala, President and CTO of SurveyMonkey, a longtime Hackbright Academy partner company who has hired several Hackbright graduates from the program. “These are qualities that make fantastic engineers.”
Hackbright Academy will now make available 160 hours of staff time per year to consult with pilot communities in order to expand the program. Other coding schools and educational institutions have made similar commitments in an effort train and fill the national tech demands.
Helping more Americans train and connect to these jobs is a key element of the President’s middle-class economics agenda.
Learn more about the new tech initiative on the White House website. You can read Hackbright Academy’s full press release here.