I flew out to Washington, DC last week to work with and visit the top problem solvers in our line of work.
I spent my time with Jeff Casimir, Ryan Seashore, and Steve Klabnik. Our mission was to complete a 4-day bootcamp for Ryan’s organization, CodeNow, which teaches programming to underrepresented youth. Jeff is the founder of Jumpstart Lab and now Hungry Academy , he is a “long-time” friend of mine relative to my time in this industry (which means I’ve known him since March of 2011). I read a lot about Steve, knew who he was, and the project he currently maintains (Hacket-Hack) was one of the first programming tutorials I ever completed.
To see the four of us working together for a common cause for a week was one of the most intriguing, and awesome facets of the trip for me. The heads of the leading educational organizations, each with a different model and approach to solving the same problem – teaching people to code. CodeNow focuses on underrepresented youth, Hackety Hack strives to be the best free online resource for kids as early as 6 or 7 years old to get started programming, Hungry Academy is an elite 24-person 5-month program for people vying for a programming gig at LivingSocial – with no prior experience in programming necessary, and Code Academy is targeting the dreamer/entrepreneur – teaching web application development to adults that are looking to do something meaningful with their lives, but aren’t sure what yet.
More important than credentials, however, is the fact that none of us had to think twice about volunteering to help out Ryan for the CodeNow bootcamp. At the core of why we do what we do, there seemed to be a very natural alignment and it was easy for us to collaborate and exchange ideas on our respective ventures.
I’m going to do what I can to help Steve out with making Hackety Hack a sustainable, and freely available project. I’m working with Ryan on bringing CodeNow to Chicago (and hopefully sponsoring one of the amazing students I met last week for Code Academy this summer). I’m actively promoting Hungry Academy to our Code Academy alumni that are in need of further training and interested in getting a job in the industry, as well as sending Jumpstart Lab any business I can as our capacity isn’t limitless.
I can only hope that the other programs out there have the kind of people behind them that I had the honor to work with over the past week. If so I think the world is on an exciting path to empower more people to solve problems with technology, and based on this experience, I think goodwill is the key for our solutions to thrive.