SAN FRANCISCO, July 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Holberton School, a college alternative for training software engineers, today announced that it has opened a third campus in Colombia, this time in Cali. As with the other Colombian campuses, the Cali school is being developed in cooperation with public and private entities, as well as entrepreneurial groups and tech companies.
Holberton, now represented on three continents, continues to roll out its innovative learning methods. The news follows last month’s announcement on the opening of a second Colombian location; the Medellín campus, which held its grand opening on July 10th. Holberton opened its first Colombian campus earlier this year in Bogotá. Like all Holberton campuses, it provides Silicon Valley-caliber peer-learning and project-based software engineering training in only two years while charging no upfront tuition.
This, plus Holberton’s automated admission process, has led to one of the most diverse learning institutions in the tech industry, not just in terms of ethnicity and gender, but also age, social class, and even learning style. Students acquire practical skills and an understanding of theory through hands-on learning. Graduates from the San Francisco-based school currently have an average full-time salary of more than $100,000 and have been hired by top-tier employers, including Apple, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Tesla, among others.
According to Simón Borrero, co-founder and CEO, Rappi, Colombia lacks up to 200,000 software engineers. The Colombian government has made it a priority to support the development of software talent to advance the digital transformation of the economy.
"One of the skills in most demand by the economy of the 21st century is programming,” said Esteban Piedrahita, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Cali. “For this reason, the arrival in Cali of Holberton School is extraordinary news. Holberton will give the opportunity to hundreds of Caleños and Valle del Cauca, who otherwise would not have access to this type of training, to connect with a wide range of quality job opportunities."
The new Cali campus, which will open in September in partnership with Coderise, will have the capability of educating up to 300 students each year with the support of Colombian-based partners Zonamerica, Comfandi, Eficacia, Socialatom, and Datecsa.
“Digital is the future for economies across the globe, a fact Colombian businesses and the Colombian government recognize. These jobs hold the promise of harnessing the untapped talent of the masses and lifting up whole regions, even whole countries,” said Sylvain Kalache, co-founder of the Holberton School. “We are educating the next generation of digital workers, the bridge between people looking for opportunities and businesses desperate for talent.”
"As an innovative organization we have bet on the arrival of Holberton School in Cali because it is a great opportunity for hundreds of young people and adults to prepare to acquire skills in software development,'' said Manuel Madriñán director of Social Services of Comfandi. "We have invited the business sector to join us to more closely align the school with business imperatives, giving them timely, focused responses to their talent needs."
The headquarters of the school in the city is located in Zonamerica, the first free zone of services in the country launched by Zonamerica de Uruguay and Grupo Carvajal.
“We are very excited to be the headquarters of Holberton in Cali,” said Jamie Miller, CEO, Zonamerica. “The vision of Zonamerica is to become a hub of technology and global services. The demand for technology talent and software development is growing rapidly and having Holberton in Zonamerica will generate an additional attraction for businesses to choose Cali as a location to grow their operations.”
Applications to Holberton are open to people with any educational background and of any age or gender. To learn more about Holberton School enrollment and opportunities, visit www.holbertonschool.com/colombia.
About Coderise:
Based in Miami and founded in 2012, Coderise focuses on providing upward social mobility to the underprivileged in Latin America through software programming education. Coderise started with the youth program in Medellin in 2012, and since then it has operated programs in Lima, Tegucigalpa, Cartagena, Popayan and Santo Domingo. In 2019 Coderise expanded its impact and reach by launching the tuition-free two-year software academy in Bogotá and Medellin through a partnership with Holberton School as well as a program for the internally displaced and refugees with Coder Your Future Colombia.
About Zonamerica
ZONAMERICA, the Free Trade Zone for services, born in Uruguay in 1990, which through its solid technological foundation, space design, modern infrastructure and services, develops the creation of business centers. The site will be built upon 38 hectares that will contain about 18 buildings, office spaces, fitness centers, restaurants and a conference centre, among a great number of services which expects to create more than 17,000 employees, thus becoming the biggest service and technology center in Colombia.
About Holberton School
With campuses in San Francisco, New Haven, CT, Medellin, Bogota and Tunis, Holberton trains software engineers using a revolutionary teaching method utilizing project-based and peer learning. Holberton’s college alternative program is free until students find a job. Graduates have been placed in high-impact engineering positions at companies like Apple, Tesla, Facebook and LinkedIn. The school is supported by mentors and investors who are leaders in technology, sports and entertainment, including: Grammy-Award winner NE-YO, actor and social activist Priyanka Chopra, New York Jets standout Kelvin Beachum; and technology visionaries LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, Docker founder Solomon Hykes and Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel. Go to www.holbertonschool.com to learn more.
Editorial Contact
Joe Eckert for Holberton School
jeckertflak@gmail.com