Re:Coded

As we look to scale Re:Coded’s impact, winning the Elevate Prize would help us amplify our platform for growth and enable us to connect with a powerful mentor network and community. Our goal would be to utilize the funding provided to implement our vision for scaling our proven "learn to earn'' model to at least 50000 underserved youth in four new countries over the next 5 years. 

Beyond scaling our impact externally, our vision is to continue to build a new kind of nonprofit that has a lasting impact on the world. An organization that is anti-fragile and distributed, with team members across the globe. We believe that the future of work transcends borders and gives an equitable voice on decision and strategy. We opt for resilient, remote-first systems and processes, async-first communication, and empowering our teams to grow through autonomy and trust.

Five years ago I had no idea I would become a social entrepreneur. I’d worked for the private sector, governments & the UN. I thought I was taking the wrong career turns. But the truth is there was a path I didn’t know I was meant to walk. 

In 2017 after many years of working at the intersection of peacebuilding & law, I co-founded Re:Coded, a humanitarian startup preparing underserved youth to enter the digital economy as software developers & designers. My vision is to enable youth being left at the margins of the technology revolution to become protagonists in the future of work, reducing inequality & spurring economic growth. 

Since then, I’ve pushed hard to build the organization from a humble pilot in Iraq to a global team of 50 that delivers high impact programs to thousands across Iraq, Yemen, Turkey & Lebanon. This journey has taught me that I have the resilience to build an organization that stands the test of time, the willingness to take calculated risks & the desire to be a great leader. I am optimistic about our ability to continue to scale our impact and in doing so, unlock human potential, regardless of circumstance.

We're in the midst of a digital revolution and traditional education systems and outdated learning models are failing to prepare youth for the future of work. Nowhere is this more evident than in countries that have already been impacted by conflict & economic turmoil. At the same time, COVID-19 has caused massive economic & educational disruption, exacerbating the effects of this technical transformation. While the net impact of this pandemic is unclear, it's evident that youth who were already at the margins of the global digital economy risk being further left behind and entering a dangerous cyclical relationship between economic disenfranchisement & instability unless we can ensure they have the skills & networks to thrive.

Re:Coded exists to actively empower youth from underserved communities to build careers in technology through our market driven, education to employment model. To date, we’ve trained 600 fellows to enter the labor market as software developers or UX/UI designers across four countries. Our fellows come from low income backgrounds, over 45% are women and 35% are refugees. Fellows have been hired at 150 global companies & annual salaries have tripled from pre to post-program, proving that talent is universal but opportunity is not.

1. Our programs are holistic & market-driven: We focus on the whole human & believe that education is not simply about lecturing & certification. We enable our students to learn how to learn & learn by doing. But more importantly, they feel seen, heard, & empowered. They find a safe space to make mistakes, fail, & try new ideas. By the end, they know more about themselves & the world around them. That’s a skill that is often taken for granted.

2. We invest in access and opportunity: Our online model enables us to reach underserved individuals who live outside major urban areas & give them access to high-quality education and infrastructure (we provide laptops and data) that would otherwise be out of reach. 

3. We Have a Powerful Network: Re:Coded's presence across the Middle East, our alumni network, mentors & hiring partners are some of our biggest assets. In addition to courses designed exclusively to meet employer needs, we foster a pipeline of industry professionals who serve as instructors & mentors. This thriving professional network helps our recent graduates find jobs and make connections, setting them up for success on the job & in life. 

We were founded on the belief that everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to join and thrive in the digital economy. We see potential in more than just diplomas and resumes. This mindset has enabled us to help us to create the impact that we have by training talented youth from non-traditional backgrounds to build careers for themselves as software developers, designers and tech leaders. We know that by empowering our students, they have the power to bring change to their homes, to their families, to their communities, and to the tech industry itself.

Since launching our first bootcamp in 2017, we have obsessively worked to improve our programs and provide the best education possible to our students. We have the track record of both learning and job outcomes in the Middle East. We also have the team experience to deliver results. Today, we are a remote-first organization with 50 full-time employees from 14 different countries with several years of experience delivering education online, of which 30% are actually graduates from our programs.

We run three core Education Programs:

Immersive Education Programs: We have trained over 600 fellows in our Immersive Courses, 100% of whom come from low-income backgrounds, 45% female and 40% identify as refugees. We are implementing training and employment facilitation for an additional 600 youth over the next 12 months. In 5 years, Re:Coded will reach over 10,000 youth per year, starting them on a path towards high value employment.

Inspire Education Program: To date, we have trained over 2500 youth in our Inspire Education Programs. We are implementing training for at least an additional 5000 underserved youth in the next 12 months. In 5 years, our goal is to have reached and impacted 1,000,000 learners globally, who are part of our ongoing community. 

Educators for Change Fellowship: We are currently adapting our existing curriculum into an online course experience for scale. Our goal is to target at least 100 educators over the course of the next year, impacting an estimated 100,000 youth. In 5 years, we will have scaled this program, graduating over 1000 educators and impacting an estimated 1,000,000 students.

Re:Coded’s vision is to become the leading education to employment model across the Middle East, creating systemic change for the region’s 150 million youth. 

By 2026, having built the operational framework and network for scale, we will be reaching millions of youth and starting them on a path toward quality digital employment and providing them with a strong foundation to increase their income earning potential. Re:Coded will be one of the most innovative nonprofits focused on the MENA region, creating contextualized education content, supporting a sustainable and thriving community and digital employment opportunities.

We are refining our current operational and educational model to optimize for scale. This means automating and refining our selection process, restructuring the way our team is managed and the way content is created and taught. We are also focused on expanding our partner network, locally and globally. We are also exploring a model that enables partners to replicate Re:Coded’s programs in countries where we don’t have operations nor plans to expand. This would mean that they are trained through our Educator for Change Fellowship and provided with licenses for our curriculum and access to our LMS, enabling us to expand our impact without expanding our footprint.

The biggest barrier we have to scale right now is securing the financial capital that enables us to achieve our vision. The vast majority of our funding is project specific and restricted funding, giving us little flexibility to expand geographically or implement innovative organization wide policies that reflect the type of organization we wish to be (remote first, diverse with comprehensive benefits that enable us to attract and retain top talent). The second biggest barrier we have to scale is the skills to amplify our media presence and brand internationally, helping us to attract new partners and funders. 

Despite these challenges, we have built a model that allows us to scale our educational programs online and hire a world-class team to support this vision. We have also built a strong and large following in the communities we operate in. We are currently hiring a dedicated Director of Global Partnerships to build upon our efforts in developing corporate, foundation, and major donor relationships. Over the coming 6 months, we will also be focused on transforming our existing board into one that has significant fundraising experience and a willingness to use their access on Re:Coded’s behalf to help us scale our impact. 

Winning the Elevate Prize would not only provide us with critical core funding which would help us to scale our model, it would also support our efforts to amplify our organization’s marketing and brand exposure, enabling us to reach increased numbers of partners, mentors and students. This amplified exposure would also help us attract the board members and advisors that are critical for the next phase of scaling.

Through the Academy course, mentorship and connections provided by the Elevate network, we believe we could take Re:Coded to the next level and reduce digital inequity for millions of underserved youth globally. 

Re:Coded’s leadership team is committed to providing justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion (JEDI) to team members across all elements of diversity. We do this through promoting values and principles that help build more inclusive change in education and global development, implementing People practices that mitigate bias, and offering lifelong learning to deepen our own understanding.

Examples in recruiting include using structured hiring, tracking candidate demographics throughout the hiring pipeline (and sourcing) to make sure there is a diverse range of final candidates, including benchmarked compensation in job post/applications based on our compensation model, and providing interview guides to raise awareness around interview bias. For existing team members, Re:Coded implemented core competencies, weekly check-ins, pulse surveys and biannual 360 Reviews. Re:Coded is designing career paths, defining vertical and role competencies, and in-house training with input from all team members and backed by research. In June 2021, Re:Coded is launching its first organization-wide bi-annual engagement survey with one category specifically dedicated to DEI. The results will drive OKRs and initiatives for Q3 and beyond. 

Re:Coded is led by Alexandra Clare and Marcello Bonatto who have worked at the intersection of social impact, education and conflict for the past decade. They have lived in the Middle East for 5 years in the communities they serve, ensuring a deep understanding of the context and challenges faced by youth in the region.

Re:Coded also has the team to deliver results and a track record of both learning and job outcomes in the Middle East. Today, it is a remote-first organization with 50 full-time employees from 14 different countries with several years of experience delivering education online, of which 30% are actually graduates from our programs. The organization embraces open-mindedness, cultural awareness and the diversity of our teammates and students. We value creativity, transparency, thinking globally and playing to win all while having fun. 

Together, our goal is to create transformation where it is most needed. And we know that by empowering our Fellows, they have the power to bring change to their families, to their neighbourhood and to the tech industry itself. 

Working in complex and uncertain environments that have been impacted by conflict, security, political and economic crises has been a challenge. In the span of the last four years, we’ve contended with rocket launches, political coups, the collapse of economies, local and global pandemics and financial insecurity, all of which have impacted our team and our students. Any one of these challenges could have forced a fledgling startup like ours to give up and fail. 

I could tell you about the contingency planning, the risk mitigation, the last minute fundraising wins and ability to be adaptable in the face of adversity in order to protect our team. Instead, what I am genuinely most proud of as a leader is the exceptional culture of care that we have created. It is a culture where we make sure to celebrate each other's life wins and show up for each other. A culture that prioritizes both mental and physical health and one that puts it’s values into practice through our policies and decision making. This ethos and practice starts from the top, because I know that by modeling this behavior, we can create more impact in our team and communities we work in. 

Alexandra has been a keynote speaker at conferences organized by the World Bank, Katapult Future Festival, Web Summit, RiseUp Summit and the United Nations. 

She has also been featured in Vogue magazine and as part of a RedBull TV series about changemakers around the world. 

She is the recipient of the NYU Changemaker Award for 2021 and was named Young Alumni of the Year at The Australian National University in 2019. 

The funding will free up some of my time as CEO and enable me to reposition myself in the organization, working towards scaling our model and partnerships across the Middle East. It will also enable us to bring on new team members that can help us build out our partnerships funding pipeline as we expand into new countries (private, corporate and institutional funding) and develop an overarching media and brand strategy, helping us to achieve more visibility to elevate our work. 

One of Re:Coded’s core values is collaboration and we actively seek out partners to maximize our impact and reach. We are currently formally collaborating with 17 funding partners (see above), 20 strategic partners and hundreds of employment partners. We are also informally collaborating with hundreds of partners in the ecosystems in which we operate in order to expand our reach and community. 

Key strategic partners include Flatiron School, Coursera, Bloomberg, Impact Hub and other non-profits such as Field Ready. Our strategic relationships have resulted in over $20 million in kind-donations for course scholarships, dedicated mentorship for our students from industry leaders as well as innovative joint thought-leadership sessions about digital trends shaping opportunities for youth in the Middle East. We are continuing to expand on our strategic partnerships with early conversations with organizations such as Accenture and the World Bank. 

We have also worked hard to develop strong employment partnerships with companies including Turkcell, TRT, Thinkific, Huawei and Atlassian. As a result, our graduates are designing products, writing code and enabling innovation across all industries as well as launching new businesses in nascent tech ecosystems, where they bring underrepresented voices and viewpoints.