Ines Jakubovski, Campus Director at Holberton School Uruguay, participated in a webinar organized by ACDE (Christian Association of Business Directors) to present Holberton School along with #Holbies and Hiring partner!
ACDE Uruguay – a non-profit Association of Business Leaders, invited our local Campus Director to present Holberton School, along with Martin M. Saavedra, Architect and #Holbie, Guillermo Jacobi CTO from Zonamerica and Alvaro Vázquez Cerfoglio from Switch Software Solutions and Free Pass.
In this webinar, they discussed the new roles and skills needed in the local tech industry. The lack of tech talent in the country. Indeed the country graduates 800 software engineers per year when companies are looking for 2,500 of them. Therefore companies have to train internally or hire abroad. The tech sector is adding $1.7B to the economy every year.
While the need for Tech Talent is constantly growing in Uruguay, Holberton School, promoted by Fundacion Zonamerica, develops innovative training programs and cultural activities that allow people to learn new skills to enable them to work for the most prestigious and internationalized companies in Uruguay.
Located in the heart of Montevideo, Holberton School Uruguay trains best-in-class software developers with programs in Full-Stack Web Development, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality, and Low Level & Algorithms.
Only one year after its inauguration, 95% of the student from Montevideo Campus’ first cohort found jobs in the IT world.
Now, with two cohorts in the learning process, we’re looking forward to welcoming the next one, starting next week!
We are thrilled to announce the opening of Holberton School Albania. This new campus will open in January 2022 in the capital city, Tirana, and will be the first Holberton School campus in the Balkan region. Albania will be the 20th country to welcome a Holberton School campus.
With the opening of a new Campus in Albania, we will help with the pent-up demand for qualified tech talent and education in the Balkan area and pursue our mission to help fill the IT talent gap in Europe, which is estimated at around 750,000 jobs by the European Commission. The location was chosen based on strong partners able to tap into the momentum created by the local government seeking to turn Albania into an innovation center. Tech training is front and center in this visionary government’s plans.
“Holberton School’s cutting-edge tools and broad scalability will play a key role in our efforts to ‘leapfrog’ forward and put the Albanian technology ecosystem on the map, and through it, catalyze the local economy,” said Arbi Mazniku, Tirana’s forward-looking Deputy Mayor.
In addition, Tirana is one of the most vibrant cities in Albania. It was selected as the European Youth Capital for 2022 due to the incredible combination of arts, culture, and entertainment. Add to this livability a low cost of living, and it is not a surprise to see an increase in ‘digital nomads’ choosing to live in Tirana. Holberton School Albania expects such internationals to join the Holberton School program alongside Albanians at its Tirana campus.
“The demand in the Albanian market for software engineers has doubled in the last year. Add to this the gigantic need for additional tech workers from nearshore markets. Holberton School provides the perfect platform for scaling up such coders’ training and producing talent to enter at a higher level than either bootcamps or traditional university programs. A true game-changer for Albania, and then the region!” says Grant Van Cleve, international angel investor and the Chairman of Holberton School Albania.
Holberton School Albania plans to enroll 100 students next year and 3,500 students in the next 5 years. It will provide best-in-class Full-stack Web Development, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Linux Programming, Advanced Algorithms, and Blockchain curriculums.
Admissions are already open for January 2022! Start your application today! www.holbertonschool.com
Holberton Puerto Rico is growing and expanding, and now opens the doors of its new custom-designed space every Friday from 9-12am for in-person Open House Fridays! Thanks to the new facilities, San Juan’s Campus will be able to welcome twice the number of students they currently see every day.
Holberton School Puerto Rico’s new Campus is located in the heart of Santurce, at Parada 23, within easy access to public transportation and in a vibrant and upcoming area that is quickly becoming the premier tech corridor in San Juan.
The new school boasts open spaces that maximize collaborative learning opportunities and provide a comfortable and secure environment appropriate for different learning styles. From open-desks areas to our Holbie Lounge, perfect for rest and relaxation, as well as informal areas to gather, whiteboard, and code!
“Our students were the inspiration for the different learning spaces” said Mercy Diaz, Campus Director at Holberton School Puerto Rico
Holberton School Puerto Rico offers the opportunity to become a programmer and software developer in under two years, with no upfront payment. Students participate in a differed payment program and only begin to pay once they have graduated and are earning a salary.
No appointment is needed to visit Holberton Puerto Rico on Open House Fridays. Tours and orientations are available from 9am to 12:00noon. For more information, call 787-296-9300, or visit: Holbertonschool/puertorico.
Holberton School Middle East improves its students’ experience by partnering with a renowned company: We grow minds. This collaboration will allow Holberton School’s Students and Alumnus to access more job vacancies, webinars and develop paid projects.
This summer, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the two entities. This MoU aims to provide Lebanese students a unique perspective on learning, development, recent technologies in the software development industry, and a community to rely on.
Established in 2018 by a professional and academic crew with more than 25 years of combined experience in the IT and business fields, We Grow Minds offers customized training and professional consultancy services to corporate and individuals, executives and employees, professionals, and students. Their services equip knowledge seekers with practical skills in leadership, design thinking, IT service, Project Management, Risk and Crisis Management, Human Resources Management, and many others. We Grow Minds is here to cater for a space that topples the conventional walls between the traditional educational system and the 21st-century essential employability skills.
This collaboration will strengthen Holberton School Middle East’s vision of giving hope and resilience to the local Lebanese community by providing support and access to state-of-the-art tech programs in the tech field and software development industry, transforming Lebanon into the tech hub of the Middle East.
The first event resulting from this collaboration will take place in October 2021. Stay tuned for the LCPC, a competitive programming contest, where the top programming teams (3 students per team) from all Universities in Lebanon will compete to solve a set of problems. LCPC, regularly organized since 2009, is an annual programming competition that aims at raising computing standards among University students in Lebanon. Given its high competitiveness, the LCPC has become an attractive forum for recruiting the most talented students in the country.
We wish our best for a successful impact in this collaboration and look forward to seeing all the outstanding achievements and plans together.
Go follow Holberton School Middle East on social media to stay updated on the coming events.
Choosing one’s path, choosing a career, choosing a school, or a Bootcamp can be difficult. Our students made that choice and joined Holberton School.
Since that moment, what do they think about their choice? In March 2021, we started to create a series of videos that featured students from all around the world. They have been asked quick questions. Here is a “Best of” series of their answers!
How would you describe Holberton School in one word?
“Challenging,” “Life-Changing,” “a great Opportunity”… That’s a tough question, with thousands of possibilities. Think about a word, and check our student’s responses!
The checker is the tool that auto-grades our students’ code. There are no surprises here; some of our students LOVE it, and some have mixed feelings about it. Check it out!
What would you say to a beginner?
A classic but essential question to ask our Holbies! Some of them said, “Give it a try!” “be committed and have fun!”, “just do it!”, check out their answers!
What have you learned about yourself?
Some experiences can be life-changing. What do our Holbies think about this one? What have they learned about themself while learning how to program? Check it out!
Today, I am thrilled to share that the Holberton School Tulsa broke ground recently on our new 18,000+ square-foot campus annex, which will more than double the size of our current campus.
We are excited to break ground on this new space, as our expanded campus will have a tremendous impact on our students, Tulsa and the state. Thanks to this expansion, we will be able to welcome hundreds of additional students per year and provide a world-class learning environment that fosters peer learning and collaboration.
Located near the Downtown Tulsa Arts District, our new campus annex will serve as a world-class learning environment that fosters peer learning and collaboration. Building features include gathering spaces for community partners and a roof deck with sweeping views of downtown Tulsa.
Much of what we’ve been able to accomplish in Tulsa is because of the support of the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation since our launch in January of 2020. Thanks to their generous support, we’ve been able to offer up to $1,500 monthly need based living assistance to eligible students and have incentives for students to remain in Tulsa upon graduation.
For Holberton graduates, staying in the Tulsa metro area is a no brainer. First, Tulsa boasts a 61% lower cost of living than big cities like New York and a 43% lower median house price than the national average. And Tulsa is placing a big bet on engaging strategies to build and attract startups and technology talent with the goal of building Tulsa into a regional technology hub. Tulsa Remote, for example, has attracted over 500 remote workers just in the last two years. Black Tech Street is building a coalition of Black talent and businesses. Tulsa Innovation Labs is growing economic development programs aimed at establishing Tulsa as the nation’s most inclusive tech community. And, of course, Holberton joins the mix as an example focused on producing the next generation of software engineers.
With over 100 students and a new campus annex on the way, we are just getting started in Tulsa!
For more information about Holberton Tulsa or to apply for the next cohort, please visit www.holbertontulsa.com/about/.
It’s been a year since we have announced the opening of a special cohort in France, alongside a €1,000,000 scholarship to help people impacted by the economic consequences of the pandemic and resulting unemployment rate.
A lot has happened since then. Our French students are very happy and have finished their first year. Since then, some of them are working, while others are starting their second year of specialization. In the meantime, we have partnered with Actual Group, and we have opened two additional campuses, one in Lille, and one in Laval. This partnership brings a lot of value to Holberton School Students: while Holberton School will ensure technical excellence amongst the students, Actual Group will help place students on the labor market.
Given the overwhelmingly positive feedback, as well as the lack of highly skilled software engineers in France, Actual Group is announcing, today, that they are opening a new Holberton School campus, in Paris. This will bring the total number of Holberton Schools around the world to 27 in September.
This opening feels very special for several reasons.
First, Paris is one of the major tech hubs in Europe, home to many disruptive startups and entrepreneurs. It is the home of the world’s largest startup campus, STATION F, as well as many incredible universities: the “traditional”, world renowned, Sorbonne University, Science Po, École Normale Supérieure… as well as the “non-traditional” École 42, Epitech and École de Guerre Economique, which I am an alumni of. It is with great enthusiasm that we will join this incredible and growing ecosystem.
Second, the partnership with Actual Group is a big value-add to our students. Given the Actual Group position as one of the French leaders in staffing and recruiting, they will be able to place students very fast, drastically reducing the placement time between graduation and placement, which is crucial to students.
As a result, seeing this strategic partnership grow that fast – three new schools in one year! – makes us really proud of working with Actual Group.
Opening the Paris campus is very special to me. I was born and raised in a southern suburb of Paris, in Val-de-Marne, 94. As a kid, I always dreamed of living in Paris. So, as soon as I graduated and got my first full-time job as a software engineer in 2006, I moved there, sharing an apartment with a friend. To me, moving to Paris was one of the happiest moments in my life, because it was a symbol: I could now access a life that was only a blurry dream before I became a software engineer. And it was at this very moment that I understood that education, if brought to the many, the right way, could change many lives for the better. It planted the seed that grew inside me for many years until I co-founded Holberton in 2015, in order to give more suburban kids and adults the opportunity to get a job that will allow them to unlock a new and better life for themselves and their families. Paris became my symbol, my proof, that I could do anything. It shattered all conscious and unconscious limitations and unlocked my life of entrepreneurship. Few months after moving to Paris, I co-founded my first company and started my journey as an entrepreneur in France, and then in the United States.
Last but not least, Paris is where I met my wife and fell in love.
After 9 years living abroad, in Miami and in Silicon Valley, the Holberton School opening in Paris revives all these memories and makes me both proud and joyful.
Welcome to all new Parisian students, I hope you will enjoy this new Holberton School campus, and I am looking forward to hearing your stories and to see you move to your own versions of Paris when you graduate.
We are thrilled to announce that we have partnered with the Anáhuac university to expand in Mexico. 8 new schools will open in the country within the next 2 years. Mérida, Yucatán, will be the first city to host a new Holberton School campus in September this year. This will bring the total number of Holberton Schools around the world to 26 in September.
With more than 50 years of history, Anahuac University is currently recognized as one of the 3 best universities in Mexico, according to the QS World University Rankings 2020. It has eight campuses around the country and five in the rest of the world. More than 90 thousand alumni attest to the mission of the Universidad Anáhuac: Contribute to the comprehensive training of positive action leaders and promote the development of the person and the society. The Anahuac educational model allows the person’s integral development by embracing the professional, intellectual, human, social, and spiritual dimensions, which is well-aligned with Holberton’s values and mission.
After Mérida, the next Holberton School campus is scheduled to open in January 2022 in Aguascalientes, followed by 6 additional campuses in 2022 and 2023.
Until all the campuses are up and running, and to open the Holberton School’s education to as many students as possible, students from all over Mexico will be able to study online through Anáhuac Online.
In addition, Anáhuac university will offer scholarships to students of the first cohort.
According to PwC, Mexico’s working-age population is expected to grow by almost 10 million in the next decade, considerably boosting the supply of available talent. But at the same time, the country lags far behind advanced economies in terms of overall talent quality. Thanks to this partnership, Anáhuac aims to allow many more students to access in-demand and well-paying jobs and contribute to the economic development of the region by increasing the overall talent quality of Mexico.
We can’t wait to meet the first Holberton School Mérida students!
Last September, more than 400 students from Cohort 13 started their journey to become Software Engineers, all over the world! To conclude the Foundations program, they built a Portfolio project. Here is a snippet of some of our students’ (great) projects.
Ahmed Belhaj, Amine Bondi, and Mohamed Chedli from Holberton School Tunis worked on a project called Quick Report. This is a cross-platform application to replace the standard paper process when filing an accident in Tunisia it helps the auto insurance Company manage their Client, and users to fill a report easier and faster from their mobile phone. Read more.
Joshua Carreras and Jaime Martínez, from Holberton School Puerto Rico, worked on a project called Go to College. It is a platform that helps students identify career paths based on their strengths and interests, and then matches them with the post-secondary education options that better fit their individual preferences and needs.
Go to College
Nicolás Portela, Sebastián Olmos, Roberto Ribeiro and Luciana Sarachu, from Holberton School Uruguay, worked on a project called readIT. It is a platform for sharing paper books, it aims to facilitate cultural access through the implementation of a network of second-hand books, contributing to sustainable consumption, and spreading the values of the community, with the book as an invaluable cultural piece and factor of union between people.
readIT
Cecilia Giudice, Julián Arbini, and Soledad Frechou, from Holberton School Uruguay, worked on a project called PlayerTrack. It is a daily use app for the different members of a team sport, in order to centralize all relevant player and team data with the ultimate objective to produce better results through a predictive model of injuries, post-injury analysis, and performance indicators.
PlayerTrack
David Alzate Alzate, Mauricio Sierra Cifuentes, and Victor Manuel Plaza, from Holberton School Cali, worked on a project called edu inspector. Automate Code-inspector.com, Escalate your business processes, Automate, Control, and Report easily Code-inspector.com data with Edu-inspector Dashboard, Manage your team Metrics, Make business decisions based on data, Get all your team Violations, Duplicates, Long functions, and Complex functions in one place.
Tomás Gómez, Andrés Aristizabal, and Carlos Úsuga, from Holberton School Medellin, worked on a project called Smart Rev. It is a state of the art application that allows creators and their teams to trace the revenue produced by a creation while getting paid automatically through the Ethereum Blockchain. Check it out
Andrés López and Diego López, from Holberton School Bogota, worked on a project called SKEXIE. It is a REST API developed for Torre using a custom trained NLP (Natural Language Processing) Machine Learning model to analyze, process, and extract relevant skills and experience required from job post offers in order to automate manual extraction into Torre’s format. Read more.
SKEXIE
Leonardo Valencia, Andrés Sotelo Durán, Juan Carlos Hernández, and Rolando Quiroz, from Holberton School Bogota, worked on a project called The Escape Room. A Text-based escape room game, powered by machine learning. The main objective is to explore the capabilities of Machine Learning combined with the tools of a text messaging platform such as WhatsApp, and demonstrate the scope of these technologies within the chatbot agent automation business model. Check it out and give it a try.
Kellie Mogg, Jasmine Choi, Lauren Dobratz, and Allen Nicholson, from Holberton School Tulsa, worked on a project called Tulsa Maps project, a web application, a web mapping platform featuring locally owned businesses in the Tulsa area. This project was based on the sole fact that localizing the Oklahoma economy would be beneficial to everyone. We feel passionate about giving our community an easily accessible map with a plethora of places to find. As a group, students want to bring awareness to local businesses as they are often overlooked by bigger franchises. Read more: tulsamaps.herokuapp.com
Paul Manot, Huy Nguyen, and Thibaut Bernard, from Holberton School France, worked on a project called Back-to-the-picture. The idea popped into their heads when they were surfing. They could see photographers on the beach and they knew they could be taking great pictures that they would never see. And thought that a platform on which you could search pictures by location and date would solve that need. That’s how BTTP, an aspiring social network for events was born. Read more
Congratulations C#13 on finishing Foundations! We’re super proud of you and wish you all the best for Specializations! Let’s do it!
We are thrilled to announce that we are expanding to the Middle East area! 9 new schools will open in 9 new countries in July this year. This will bring the total number of Holberton Schools around the world to 25.
Our first school in the Middle East opened in Beirut, Lebanon, in March 2020. The Holberton School Beirut has since sparked interest from other countries in the region. Today, we are very excited to announce the opening of Holberton Schools in Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
The 9 new locations, as well as Holberton School Lebanon, will be regrouped into a new entity called Holberton School Middle East. It will be operated and managed by StarTechEUS. Alexandre Harkous will serve as Chairman of Holberton School Middle East.
This massive expansion will play a key role in the economic growth in the region.
“There is a high demand and need for qualified tech talent, and a tech education is the key to remaining competitive in a global economy. Our students have exceptional talents, and our goal is to develop those gifts into excellences while supporting their unique needs.” – Alexandre Harkous, Chairman of Holberton School Middle East.
The First-of-its-kind Tech initiative will allow the region to provide best in class tech curriculum seeking to empower Arab technology-driven students, and giving them the opportunity to grow, thrive, and realize their potential by equipping them with the required skills to compete in the local, regional and international markets.
“We’re focused on developing strategies and programs for young Arabs with tech skills that encourage inclusion and a passion for Technology. We’re very excited about this potential social impact and our Holberton School expansion.” – Alexandre Harkous, Chairman of Holberton School Middle East.
The 9 new campuses will start online first and will gradually open physical spaces as soon as COVID-19 allows it.
Holberton School Middle East plans to train 10,000 new students in software engineering and computer science by 2025.
To learn more about Holberton School Middle East, you can visit www.holberton-me.com.
