The Kodigo Academy of Creative Technology and the IDB Lab, the innovation laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group, launched an intensive training program on software development.
The “Kod1ficando para Mejorar Vidas” is a training program that uses the “bootcamp” methodology, which consists of developing intensive courses in branches of the digital sector. The alliance between Kodigo and the IDB Lab involves an investment of $ 1.5 million and aims to train 1,500 people, with an emphasis on the vulnerable population such as women, young people in the interior of the country and returnees.
Fernando Kriete, founder and CEO of Kodigo, explained that the new program includes courses to be developed lasting three and six months, which were designed by Applaudo Studios, a company dedicated to providing technology services.
We want to help and accompany young people on this learning journey. Improve income opportunities, recode education, ”said Fernando Kriete, Founder of Kodigo.
The program includes training in areas of technology, leadership skills or teaching English, as well as an employability strategy through agreements with companies that operate in the country in the provision of global digital services.
The executive said the courses were designed in consultation with companies that hire talent in creative technology skills. “It allows our youth to access a dynamic where income-generating opportunities are truly abundant,” added Kriete.
Those interested in the program must pass an exam that will assess basic computer skills and the cost may be paid through a salary discount agreement when hired by an allied company or in advance.
A growing demand
“Developing human capital is key to ending poverty and creating more inclusive societies,” said Irene Arias Hofman, CEO of the IDB Lab, who anticipated that the Latin American region will need more than one million software developers in the next three years.
Elena Heredero, a specialist at the IDB Lab, explained that “bootcamps” show accelerated growth in Latin America after their emergence as a “disruptive model” just 10 years ago. Kodigo is a pioneer with this teaching methodology in El Salvador.
The “bootcamps” emerged as a response to the demand for qualified labor in the technology industry, in an environment where it is estimated that 25% of current jobs are at risk of automation in Latin America.
With regard to human talent, the challenge is great and we will only be able to overcome it, to the extent that we all add as Kodigo and the IDB do ”, said María Luisa Hayem, Minister of Economy
Darwin Romero, co-founder of Applaudo Studios, assured that the lack of qualified manpower in technology is the main obstacle pointed out by the executives of companies in this area.
For her part, María Luisa Hayem, Minister of Economy, assured that through the Skills in the Cloud program, executed with Amazon Web Services (AWS), more than 2,500 young people from 16 higher education institutions have been trained in computer skills , artificial intelligence and machine learning.
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