Justice Through Code is a coding bootcamp that will serve as a gateway for formerly incarcerated individuals to career track positions in the technology sector. Taught over the course of ten weeks on Columbia University’s Morningside Campus, it will focus on teaching formerly incarcerated individuals the fundamentals of programming in Python, as well as providing soft skills training and networking opportunities. The program will cover curriculum, developed by Professor Mattan Griffel of the Columbia Graduate School of Business, which focuses first on teaching participants the fundamentals of programming in Python, and then provides assignments designed to test participants’ knowledge of program material.
Throughout the course, various industry leaders will visit the classroom to familiarize participants to career options and allow for connections with possible mentors. The program will work to provide participants with pathways to these career options upon their completion of the course. JTC will provide weekly training and support from a well-known author and industry-renowned soft skills specialist to assist participants in becoming competitive applicants to jobs, internships, or future job training in the tech industry. It will include: resume assistance, career coaching, interview prep, and personal narrative development.
During the final two weeks of the course, participants will work on their culminating achievement: a capstone software project that they will conceive and develop in preparation to display their projects at Justice Through Code’s networking event held at Columbia’s Graduate School of Business. This event will provide further opportunities for participants to connect with mentors. Upon program completion, JTC will work with partnership organizations to place participants in internships or jobs throughout the NYC tech ecosystem, and to provide pathways to additional job training, should participants choose to pursue other careers paths in the tech industry.
Justice Through Code is a partnership between the Center for Justice at Columbia University, and the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at the Columbia Graduate School of Business. The program will start in early February, 2020, meeting twice a week in the evening, for two and a half hours on the Columbia University Morningside Campus.
Program Completion Certificates will be provided by the Columbia Graduate School of Business. Our expectation is that we will replicate this model program by the end of 2020.
For more information, please contact:
Aedan Macdonald: Program Manager—[email protected]