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#BornToCode opens applications for SA youth

Paula Gilbert
By Paula Gilbert, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 01 Oct 2015
Applications open today for young people who believe they are #BornToCode.
Applications open today for young people who believe they are #BornToCode.

South Africa's youth can today find out if they are really #BornToCode, as online applications open for a programming academy that has no teachers, no books and no lectures.

The first tuition-free, peer-to-peer programming academy in Africa comes from a partnership between local tech incubator WeThinkCode, Africa 2.0 and Ecole 42 in France. It has big ambitions to train and develop 100 000 coders in Africa over the next 10 years.

WeThinkCode has signed a franchise agreement with 42 to replicate its model and course in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will use the curriculum developed by 42, translated into English, when it launches its first South African academy in Johannesburg in January.

Anyone between the ages of 17 and 35 can take a test online or on their mobile phone to see if they have the aptitude to become a coder. For people without easy access to the Internet, facilities at the Johannesburg City Library and Sandton Library can be used to play the two online games that form the application test.

Co-founder Camille Agon says 42 has been going since 2013 but is based on the education model and course of EPITA, France's top private software engineering school.

"With no teachers, no books and no lectures, 42 trains France's brightest young minds to become world-class developers in two to three years in a learn-by-doing and peer-to-peer learning approach. Ten hours a day, six days a week, students learn to think and write code, by solving increasingly difficult programming challenges via the school's intranet. To find solutions, learners have to cooperate, pool resources, and gather information from the Internet," says Agon.

Co-founder Yossi Hasson says so far 3 500 South African students have already shown interest and pre-applied for the programme before applications opened today. Once students have filled out their application process on the WeThinkCode Web site, they need to pass two tests to qualify for the next boot camp stage. The tests are two games, the first being a 10-minute memory game followed by a logic component that takes over two hours to complete.

Co-founder Justinus Adriaanse says the 300 who score highest will be invited to a four-week bootcamp and out of these, the first intake of 100 students for the academy will be chosen.

"The great thing about #BornToCode is that you never know who will have the aptitude. That is what makes the application process so great. There is a high correlation between people who do well in the online tests and people who have the aptitude to become world-class software engineers," says Adriaanse.

"We do think there will be some differences to 42 because the SA context isn't necessarily the same as the context in Paris. We are not sure exactly what those differences are yet but we have some assumptions. So we are going to be seeing how we can modify the programme to localise it for the South African context. That is why we are starting with 100 students as opposed to 1 000 for our first intake," says Hasson.

42 has had 1 000 students complete its programme and Hasson says students have already received two job offers each.

Hasson says this kind of programme is important for SA and the continent because it is helping to develop real home-grown skills that can be used to make the lives of people on the continent better.

"If you think about it, we are net importers of software from global developers, and someone in Manhattan or San Francisco is not thinking about the South African challenges and the South African context. They are maybe developing a better filtering app for your iPhone, whereas we have real problems that technology can solve.

"If we are creating a surplus of developers, we are creating employment and also hopefully finding people who are going to find innovative new solutions to solving South Africa's challenges," adds Hasson.

Free academy

The programme is entirely free and students are not selected based on previous education or socio-economic backgrounds. Founding sponsors First National Bank (FNB), BBD and Derivco are helping to pay for the tuition of the chosen students, along with donations gathered from some of SA's tech leaders who this week took part in the first #BornToCode Tech Leader Challenge. The 64 leaders that took part helped to raise a total of R10.7 million for the programme.

The tech leaders had to take the first aptitude test that applicants will take, a level-based memory game. Only five out of 64 made it past level seven, which is the minimum requirement level to be accepted into 42's programme in France. Two made it to level eight, with the winner being Limitless Virtual MD Dennis Wevell, followed closely by Click Foundation founder Nicola Harris. Third place was taken by Brandon Stafford, a tech leader at FNB.

Hasson says he was surprised by the outcome as he had his money on the software developers taking part.

"This proves what we are trying to say, which is that anyone has the potential and that is what we are trying to test. The game shows people that don't even know they have that innate talent, that they have that potential. So hopefully we are going to find people that have no idea and we can unlock this innate passion in them."

The programme will run for two years and includes two- and four-month internships.

"At the end of the two years, the students agree to work for the founding partners or the corporate sponsors for a period of 12 -24 months, so we are guaranteeing employment for them but also providing very necessary skills to our corporate sponsors," says Hasson.

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