SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 05, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Holberton School, the college alternative educating the next generation of digital workers, announced today that Florian Bucher, a leader in the software engineering peer-based education space, has joined the company as its new COO. The school also announced Libby Wuller as campus manager and executive director in Tulsa, OK, and Mariana Perez as campus manager in Barranquilla, Colombia.
Bucher co-founded the French coding school Ecole 42, a network of non-profit international schools teaching software engineering using peer-based education. Bucher’s prior experience includes serving as CTO of IONIS, one of Europe’s largest networks of post-secondary schools. He also previously worked as a Telecom engineer and an IT manager at EDIS, Thomson Telecom, Cirpack, Wengo, and Epitech.
“I have seen how few qualified software engineers there are worldwide relative to demand. For years, I’ve devoted my career to the advancement of project-based education, which I believe has the potential to address this very real workforce challenge,” said Bucher. “I am excited to bring my years of experience in this field to Holberton School, where we’re training the next generation of highly qualified, diverse, and compassionate software engineers.”
New Tulsa Executive Director Wuller comes to her role after working nearly half a decade as a key member of the founding team at Quorum, a company building software built for public affairs, stakeholder engagement, legislative tracking, and grassroots advocacy. Prior to Quorum she worked in Government Affairs and Policy at the YMCA of the USA. An Oklahoma native, she also advocates for women and young people's role in government.
“I wanted to do something positive and high impact in my community,” said Wuller. “I am so committed to Holberton’s mission and am thrilled to be part of the reimagining and regrowth of Tulsa.”
New Barranquilla Campus Manager Perez has more than 6 years of experience designing and implementing social, emotional, and developmental projects in the private sector. She is also a native of Barranquilla.
“I was so inspired when Shakira opened a school to help underserved young and grade school kids in Barranquilla,” said Perez. “Her goal with these efforts is similar to ours at Holberton: to make education more accessible to all, regardless of one’s socioeconomic background or ability to pay. While Shakira’s educational initiative is focused on preschool through high school-aged students, Holberton is providing post-secondary training to the next generation of highly trained, diverse software engineers.”
Holberton launched in 2016 with its flagship headquarters in San Francisco and opened a second campus in New Haven, CT in September 2018. Now, in just over a year, Holberton has opened six new schools on three continents, including schools in Bogotá, Medellín, Barranquilla and Cali, Colombia; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Tunis, Tunisia and Beirut, Lebanon.
“We are thrilled to have Florian, Libby and Mariana join our growing team,” said Julien Barbier, co-founder and CEO, Holberton School. “With their help, we are excited to grow the Holberton family as we scale to provide affordable, high-quality education to the masses.”
Founded in 2015 by Julien Barbier and Sylvain Kalache, Holberton charges no upfront tuition and is free until students find a job. Instead, graduates are asked to contribute a percentage of their future salaries for the first three and a half years of their post-Holberton employment. Holberton’s unique approach to financing makes its world-class education financially accessible to everyone regardless of their ability to pay and creates a virtuous cycle of alumni who pay it forward for the next generation of students. Graduates are highly diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender, age and socioeconomic background and have been hired by top-tier employers, including Apple, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Tesla, among others.
Holberton’s innovative, hands-on curriculum and bias-free, automated admissions process enable the school to create a pipeline of highly-skilled, diverse talent for the technology industry. There are no lectures and no formal teachers. Instead, the highly relevant, practical curriculum, developed in coordination with leading employers, combines project-based and peer learning so that students acquire both the hands-on skills and the understanding of theory to help them succeed for the long-term in the technology industry's most demanding jobs.
Since Holberton’s first cohort began in January 2016, the current median income for full-time employed former students has been $102,000 their first year out of school and $118,000 their second year out of school. 100 percent of Holberton graduates have found employment, 97 percent of which is full-time.
About Holberton School
A world-class education should be available to everyone–regardless of background, gender, or ethnicity. That’s why Holberton’s college alternative program is free until students find a job. Graduates have gone on to earn six-figure salaries as engineers at leading employers, including Apple, Tesla, NASA, Google and LinkedIn. Holberton trains software engineers in both practical knowledge and theory utilizing project-based and peer learning. Students learn how to become lifelong learners and leaders in their fields. Holberton is supported by professional advisors and investors from the technology and entertainment industries, including: Grammy award-winner NE-YO; actor and social activist Priyanka Chopra; acclaimed author, journalist, and educator Esther Wojcicki; and technology visionaries LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, Docker founder Solomon Hykes, and Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel. Holberton has campuses in San Francisco, CA; New Haven, CT; Tulsa, OK; Medellin, Bogota, Barranquilla and Cali, Colombia; and Tunis, Tunisia, Go to www.holbertonschool.com to learn more.
Editorial Contact
Joe Eckert for Holberton School
jeckertflak@gmail.com