Published on the 06/12/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Backed by Xero, Telecom, CarnivalLabs, Powershop and Grow Wellington, the new DevBootcamp-style course offers motivated self-starters a foot in the door of local tech companies…
High skilled IT professionals are the fuel for the high tech, innovation economy and New Zealand’s ICT sector is constantly bemoaning their lack. A billboard outside Orion Health’s Auckland headquarters recently read, ‘currently filling 300 vacancies’, and at the eCentre’s November panel discussion Rod Drury, Vaughan Rowsell and Greg Murphy (founders of Xero, Vend and Unleashed respectively) highlighted their concerns that the lack of skills could be detrimental to New Zealand’s economy.
“We really want to see IT as a primary industry in New Zealand – Kiwis are really good innovators who do good stuff with not much,” Rowsell said, but that’s not enough to compete on the world stage.
Murphy added, “I don’t want to have to hire offshore. We need to start teaching graduate programmes to ensure the longevity of the NZ IT industry.”
The new course is New Zealand’s first intensive developer training programme based on the successful DevBootcamp model from SanFransico. Run by Enspiral and called the Enspiral Dev Academy, the local version is being described as “an intensive nine-week pressure cooker programme” that is designed to “radically up-skill passionate and capable software developers preparing them to step straight into great jobs”. In fact 90 percent of last year’s US graduates got jobs within two months of completing the course.
“We’ve never had anything like this in New Zealand before. For our candidates this will be a powerful step up, opening doors into some of New Zealand’s most exciting businesses,” said Rohan Wakefield, co-founder of the Enspiral Dev Academy.
There will be 30 places available on each programme and Wakefield said they are open to anyone with passion and proficiency with a computer. “There is no age limit, people will need to be motivated, resourceful self starters. Even though the class is 40 hours per week, you will be working more like 70 to 100 hours.”
The Academy has the backing of local tech companies including Xero, Telecom, Carnival Labs and Powershop and will be delivered in partnership with Wellington City Council and supported by Grow Wellington.
Adrian Gregory, general manager for innovation and workforce growth at Grow Wellington said it got behind Enspiral to assist with overall development costs of the programme.
“The US has a high record of follow-on employment success from these boot camps and like these, Enspiral’s programme balances technical training with soft skills like customer-focused communications, which prepare students for the work environment.
“ICT in the Wellington region is going from strength to strength and companies are calling out for skilled workers. We saw an opportunity to work with Enspiral and make a significant contribution towards addressing what is an immediate need.”
The fee will be $11,000 per place on the programme, with $4000 of this fee to be refunded by the Academy when a graduate obtains a job in the industry. Wellington City Council is also sponsoring graduates who take up employment in the industry in Wellington by way of a bursary.
“There is also provision for IT businesses to sponsor students and fund them through their studies, partially or completely,” Gregory added.
Enspiral’s owner Wakefield says the programme has been developed after consultation with a number of the Wellington region’s IT businesses. “We have made sure that we can offer students a chance to learn relevant skills needed by industry now.”
Prospective employers can join the Academy’s Employer Network and get preferential access to meet and greet the candidates. There is no fee to join this network and there is no guarantee of securing a candidate from the programme, although there is a suggestion that employers pay DevAcademy 15 percent of the value of the first year’s salary should a candidate end up working for them.
Xero is a member of the Employer Network and Drury says, “This is a great initiative to increase the skills of New Zealanders in the IT sector as we build more globally competitive businesses. This partnership with Dev Academy is a great step forward and I look forward to working with Dev Academy students and seeing the results on graduation day.”
“There is certainly a shortage of hireable technical talent in Wellington. When Dev Academy achieve what they aim to it will be a huge benefit to tech companies,” adds Ari Sargent CEO of Powershop, another member of the Employer Network.
Anyone interested in joining the Academy can apply now online at www.devacademy.co.nz. The first programme starts on April 27th 2014.
