Exemplar: holberton school

Holberton School Australia, an extension of the global computer science school, empowers aspiring software engineers through a ‘learn by doing’ project-based curriculum.

The nine-month ‘Foundations of Software Engineering Program’ equips students with the practical skills and hands-on experience needed to excel in the tech industry.

Launched in Australia in January 2022, Holberton aims to make a tech career accessible to a more diverse audience, who are typically mid-career switchers and up-skillers. Its automated admissions process is completely ‘blind’ to remove human biases and was created specifically to identify smart, motivated people. It is agnostic to previous education, work experience, gender, ethnicity, or age.

Holberton collaborates with industry leaders like REA Group and Reece Tech to up-skill non-technical employees, and guarantees a job interview with Accenture to all students.

By providing an alternative path to a career in tech, whilst fostering strong relationships with their corporate partners, Holberton is proactively addressing digital skills training in Australia.

“I don’t think I actually thought that I could become a software engineer – that didn’t actually seem possible to me. And even though I enrolled, and signed up, it was only recently that I accepted that, oh, okay – maybe being a software engineer is possible.”