Today, December 15, 2014, CEO and co-founder of The Nerdery Mike Derheim is announcing the launch of Prime Digital Academy (Prime), a new school for software engineers.
The announcement came this morning at the new location for the school in Bloomington, MN, which is currently under construction. Prime is described as an “18-30 week intense, immersive accelerated learning program dedicated to helping smart, driven learners get up to speed for entry-level jobs in software engineering.”
The development of the school comes in response to a growing need for talent in the field of software development. With an ever growing tech industry both here and across the globe, engineers, programmers, and developers are in high demand.
“Minnesota businesses are already feeling the competition for too few talented, job-ready software developers,” the Nerdery stated in a press release, citing that 65% of IT leaders say the tech talent gap is negatively affecting their business. For this reason, the Nerdery says they are tackling the problem “head on” through partnering with business and government officials to launch the Prime Digital Academy.
“Prime Digital Academy believes there is an untapped army of smart, passionate problem solvers able to rise to the challenge of building tomorrow’s software,” they state on the Prime website. “We’re here to help them get ready.”
The goal, according to the press release, is to equip graduates with entry-level technical skills relevant in the current market, while also teaching behavioral and critical thinking skills that will aid them in successfully being a part of a software development team.
What’s particularly interesting are the values of the school listed on Prime’s website. There are four: Students first, learn by doing, be humble, and empathy > engineering. It seems to tackle the stereotypical image of programmers being reclusive or socially awkward, as well as occasionally overly cocky.
“People who know everything can’t learn anything,” they write.
More than 25 local businesses have signed to work with Prime by hosting apprenticeships, serving on the curriculum board or committing to hire graduates, including Sport NGIN, Thomson Reuters, Robert Half Technology, Digital People, Modern Climate, Periscope, Smart Things, MHTA, MN.IT, and GovDelivery.
Online applications for Prime are now available. Classes will begin February 24, 2015. Regularly monthly cohorts are slated to follow in July comprised of 18-20 students per class. Tuition is $12,500, which includes a $500 prepayment discount.
In hopes to make Prime accessible to everyone regardless of financial situations, the Nerdery is partnerhing with the City of Minneapolis Employment Training, the Minnesota High Tech Association, the Creating IT Futures Foundation and Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis to make public and private funding available to qualified students. They credit this to an “innovative program by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.”
The Nerdery is a technology agency that solves client’s unique business needs in website, mobile, and social-media app development. They were founded in 2003 by three programmers, and continue to pursue their goal of creating “the best place for nerds to work.” According to the Prime website, the founders of the Nerdery were inspired by the challenges of finding qualified software engineers.
“Prime was created to help Minnesota’s tech industry develop the talent they need to drive innovation in software,” they write.
Find out more, here!
