Fighting inequality and increasing diversity in tech
CodeYourFuture (CYF) is a UK based non-profit organisation that trains refugees, asylum seekers and other disadvantaged people to become web developers and find work in the tech industry. At CYF Scotland, we are on the lookout for new partners and volunteers, as we approach the start of our fifth class in early 2021.
Our mission
Targeting motivated applicants who have limited access to education and are currently underrepresented in the tech sector, CodeYourFuture is not another coding school, it is a community with a mission to fight inequality. In fact, CYF strives to remove as many obstacles to learning as possible for its students: the course is free and students’ costs, such as travel, childcare and internet are covered. Moreover, our 8-month-long part-time course is designed to allow students to fit their studying around other commitments.
Our students
CYF students come from a variety of backgrounds, including:
- Refugees or Asylum seekers
- Single Parents with low income
- Those diagnosed with mental health, learning, or physical disabilities,
- Those who live in a household with a total income below the UK poverty line,
- Women, minorities, ex-offenders, or anyone else experiencing problems getting the education needed to find meaningful work- including being homeless or long-term unemployed.
Our course
At CYF, the tech curriculum starts from the basics and encompasses front-end and back-end technologies, in order to develop rounded full-stack junior web-developers. Alongside technical development, the CodeYourFuture program places an emphasis on the development of soft-skills and positive habit formation over the duration of the course. Moreover, students are matched with professional mentors who offer them career guidance and support during the course. Employment is one of CYF’s main success benchmarks. Upon graduation, we help our students with CV writing, interview skills, and match them to exciting job opportunities within our partner network and wider community.
Our impact
Despite our focus on remaining an inclusive and diverse volunteer-led community, we pride ourselves on the practical impact we have on people’s career development. So far, in Glasgow, we’ve graduated thirty-nine Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp students, 70% of whom have gone on to further related study or full-time tech employment. Our graduates have gone on to work with organisations such as BBC Scotland, STV and many other companies and startups in Scotland.
We are on course to graduate a further ten students in November, and are almost ready to interview applicants for our largest class yet of thirty students in our next Bootcamp starting in early 2021.
Join us!
To achieve our aims, we have worked with a number of corporate partners over the past few years. In Scotland, we have a special opportunity for partners to sponsor the development of students in our next Bootcamp. We ensure our partnerships are fruitful for everyone involved, with fantastic opportunities to energise your company’s working atmosphere and social impact through things like tailored volunteering opportunities, collaborative workshops and exclusive hiring avenues.
If you are interested in the chance to make an impact in your community and taking concrete action towards increasing diversity in the tech industry, we would love to speak with you.
For more information on how you or your organisation can get involved with CYF from a tech education, career mentoring, soft skills development or sponsorship perspective, contact scotland@codeyourfuture.io.
You can also find further information about CodeYourFuture on our website: https://codeyourfuture.io/.
The Applied FinTech Project at the University of Glasgow – update
Article written by Elisabetta Trasatti, Vice-President of the University of Glasgow FinTech Society
The Applied Fintech Project (AFTP), organised by the University of Glasgow Fintech Society, is shaping up to be one of the society’s greatest achievements since being established.
After being launched in September, the project is rapidly approaching its final steps, with the final event being in about two weeks.
The Applied FinTech Project has been designed by the society as an innovative opportunity for University students, who often feedback the lack of practical and experiential learning opportunities in their studies. The aim of the project is in fact to give students the chance to work on a “live” business case and come up with a solution in their team which the business can benefit from.
The case has been kindly provided by Orca, an Edinburgh-based Fintech startup which operates in the peer to peer lending industry. The society has been in close contact with the Orca team during the past months to decide which type of business case would best fit the AFTP challenge, with a particular focus on how to make best use of the diversity in the participating teams.
In fact, apart from receiving far more applications than expected, the UoG FinTech Society was impressed by the variety of degree subjects, years of study and backgrounds of the applicants. The 25 selected participants’ degrees range from Business to Computer Science, to Engineering, Psychology, Data Science and Law just to name a few. Another impressive feature in the teams’ composition is the fact that there are two Postgraduate students in each team. This is impressive considering the usual difficulty for student societies to actively engage Postgraduate students.
The project provided the teams with significant support throughout the working month on the case. In fact, each team was assigned a mentor or a pair of mentors, who could be contacted at any point during the project to get advice and help with the case.
A special mention in the support given to the teams goes to Deloitte, which has been AFTP event supporter. The team at Deloitte has not only provided mentors for two of the five teams, but has also organised a successful workshop at their Glasgow offices in which all the project participants received an insight into Deloitte’s work in automation and RPA solutions, as well as tips and advice on how to approach the AFTP challenge.
In two weeks, on Friday 16th November, the five teams will have the chance to present their solutions to a board of judges, composed of both academics from the University and professionals who have developed their competence and expertise in FinTech through their work in companies such as Morgan Stanley and Deloitte, as well as startups such as Previse and Orca.
Stephen Ingledew, CEO at FinTech Scotland, will attend the event as a keynote speaker and Keith O’Donnell, Data Engineer at Morgan Stanley, will also offer his contribution to the event as a speaker.
The evening, which will be at the Glasgow University Union, will be accompanied by live music performed by one of the University of Glasgow Music societies. Guests will also be able to network over a buffet dinner and drinks, thanks to the society receiving sponsorship from the Adam Smith Business School.