Base Camp Coding Academy

Team Leader

Glen Evans

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

One-line solution summary:

Tuition free, coding academy providing young adults with limited future educational or career pathways training in software engineering.

Pitch your solution.

Every high school teacher or counselor has a story of a young person who "could have made it if ____". Base Camp seeks to remove the "if". These hurdles may be financial, social or other. But at Base Camp these are removed. In a focused, protected and intimate setting, students work with real world technologies to learn the fundamentals of coding, app development and the life leadership skills needed to be successful in their careers and competitive in the job market. With a proven track record of four classes of graduates during its pilot phase and a fifth class currently seated in a new facility, Base Camp has proven its ability to scale generational change in the lives of its students in this rural, Mississippi region.

What specific problem are you solving?

The shortage of software engineers in Mississippi (over 1100 jobs currently unfilled) and across the nation is well documented. A demand problem. Base Camp believes an under-recognized supply lies in the rural public high schools around our region. As mentioned above, every teacher and counselor has stories of young people who, through no fault of their own, have their pathways limited by financial hurdles, social obstacles, or simply a lack of awareness of opportunities in the software engineering field. However many of these young people possess the attitude and aptitude to succeed in this field. Based on college readiness statistics from the public schools within Base Camp's current footprint, we believe there to be upwards of 100 of these candidates graduating annually. Hence Base Camp's dual mission of providing pathways for these deserving and driven recent graduates, and supplying resources to in a much needed area of our local economy. To date we have graduated over 40 students in this program through its first 4 years with a greater than 90% employment rate, avg of 2.5 offers per student, and average starting annual salaries in the $50k range.

What is your solution?

Students cannot apply to Base Camp without first being nominated by a teacher or counselor in their high school. Next comes a thorough interview and application process which includes an aptitude test. Upon admission, the students being a 12 month, 40 hour per week program based on three pillars.

Technical - Students graduate from Base Camp with the technical skills to perform in an entry level software position. Including proficiency in Django, HTML, Java, Python and more. We have employer testimonials that these graduates stack up well against those new hires with four year university degrees; sometimes even better due to the real world, technical training they receive at Base Camp.

Professional - Importantly, Base Camp teaches not only the technical skills the students will need to succeed, but also the professional skill such as interview skills, resume writing, professional dress, even table etiquette.

Community - Base Camp employees a full time instructor to focus on the professional and community skill building. Community includes, among other aspects, teams that support the operations and logistics of the academy itself while others lead out reach in this small rural community such as leading software educational classes at the local public school.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

We are focused strictly on a cohort of high school graduates who, in non-covid times, would have literally just graduated from high school a few weeks prior to joining Base Camp on June 1 of the year. Our philosophy is that this gives us the greatest chance of success as these young people, at this stage, have most like accumulated less life debt and also still retain the discipline that an academic schedule demands. The target student is described above. We have seen multiple instances in our work of generational changes in families due to the success of a Base Camp student/graduate. In more than one incidence we have had graduates begin their career at earnings levels above that of their parents or guardians currently.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Match current and future employer and industry needs with education providers, workforce development programs, and diverse job seekers

Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the US Challenge and your selected dimension.

Base Camp's dual mission described above directly marries the demand of employers for skilled software engineers with the supply of under-represented and under-advantaged young adults entering the workforce that have heretofore gone unnoticed and unequipped with the necessary resources and training.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Water Valley, MS, USA

If your solution is already being implemented in the US, in which US state(s) do you currently operate?

Mississippi

In which US state(s) will you be operating within the next year?

Mississippi

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth

Who is the team lead for your solution?

Corey Mize

How many people work on your solution team?

3 full time employees

2 co-founders

4 highly engaged board members

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization?

As a non-profit educational entity we are prohibited from selecting based on race, gender or other factors; however our addressable market (the area public schools) are highly diverse and our "pitch" to our nominators (teachers and counselors as described above) tends to naturally gravitate nominations toward under-represented groups. While our success in attracting, retaining and placing female students has been above averages represented in the industry, and the same for Latino, our success in the Black community has, while still above industry benchmarks, not been as high as we had hoped. We are constantly working to improve that. Among other efforts, we are currently the subject of a dissertation of a Vanderbilt Phd candidate studying ways to improve recruitment, retention and placement in this area.