Hack the Beach 2017 Contest Sign-up
Sep 05, 2017
submission
#86
Submit your idea
Your idea/ technology/ company
| Name of your idea or project | Proficia's React Native Apprenticeship |
| Which challenge area does your idea respond to? | Building Community, Learning |
| Describe your idea and how it can help Santa Monica | Many local and national programs provide technical training, mentorship, and employment coaching to women and girls, people of color, and other groups underrepresented in tech. Few programs focus on training people who already have coding skills to move into senior positions. However, the tech firms of Silicon Beach are recruiting many senior devs from outside of the LA area (2017 Los Angeles IT Sector Report). A lack of diversity of devs in senior positions means a lack of social connections to talented individuals from underrepresented groups in LA who should be considered for the rewarding high-paying jobs in the tech sector. Thus diversifying senior positions has a potential ripple effect as senior devs move through their professional career into leadership positions. Proficia is building a program in Santa Monica for promoting diversity among more senior computer programmers, who are in the highest demand among programming skill levels. Our training and employment program will give Santa Moncia-based companies an option for accessing underrepresented talent, whether through our contract dev shop or through employment of one of our alumni. Proficia's plan is to 1) offer free meetups for skilled programmers (all welcome, underrepresented groups targeted) that guide program applicants through the self-study of key concepts and skills needed to enter React Native phone app developer training; 2) offer a part-time Saturday bootcamp in React Native based in Santa Monica; 3) launch a phone app development firm, also based in Santa Monica, and hire some of the bootcamp graduates as apprentice app developers, while others will be able to find employment using this high-demand framework. |
| What stage is your idea or project in? | Prototype / MVP built |
| What needs to happen to launch your product? Please list all resources (hardware, software, licensing, legal/regulatory, funding, partnership or support from the City, data, etc.) required to launch your program. | Proficia has access to unemployment training funds and has strong relationships with several employment support non-profits for youth with barriers to employment, women, and veterans. Therefore, those who qualify could have their tutition covered. We need to continue to build our list of developers interested in learning React Native. |
| How realistic is it for your idea to be implemented by early 2018? Please describe what resources (if any) you will need in order to ensure a working product by early next year. | Proficia has just delivered our first iteration of another curriculum, Electronics and Embedded Programming, and we have already assisted with job placement for many of the program alumni. This week, we are launching our contract embedded programming social enterprise that will create jobs for some of the alumni. The React Native program will benefit from Proficia's experience helping youth learn embedded programming. During fall 2017, we will be offering more meetup sessions. (The first was at Santa Monica Library in August.) We will also continue to build our React Native curriculum and social media following, focusing on building a community of developers centering around Santa Monica who want to learn React Native. We will build a collection of instructional materials, including videos and resources on our GitHub site. Finally, we need to build our connections with Santa Monica-area employers who need React and React Native devs. |
You and your team
| Team Name | Proficia |
| List team members and their roles | --- |
| Contact email | --- |
| Phone number | --- |
| Primary Contact Name | --- |
Initial application scoring
Scoring
| Viability (40%) | --- |
| Value (40%) | --- |
| Growth (20%) | --- |
| Notes | --- |
| Advance to semi-finalist status? | Yes |