TED NewsDesk, HYDERABAD: TheHackingSchool.com run by Bootcamp Innovations Private Limited announced its merger with iCollege Ltd, an Australia based, listed education company. The deal was reportedly underway since almost a year.
TheHackingSchool.com is India’s first coding Bootcamp, founded by Meraj Faheem, a Hyderabad-based entrepreneur. The merger will take Bootcamp-style training provided at the institute, to multiple sectors in different cities across India. TheHackingSchool.com is known for its flagship 13-week intensive classroom program on web development.
The Hacking School has mastered the art of teaching software engineering while training and nurturing new talent for almost six years. Answering the question on the comparison between Bootcamp and an Indian engineering course, Meraj Faheem explained, “In less than four months, our graduates go on to build products that an average engineering student doesn’t in 4 years of college. By the time an engineering student graduates, a boot camper from The Hacking School would have already gained 3+ years of experience, delivered not just RoI, but also value for time and money, and would likely be deciding to hire an engineering graduate or not.”
Ashish Katta, the Managing Director of iCollege, added that his company and The Hacking School present a perfect combination to uplift careers of millions of young Indians. It is notable that a considerable number of Indians annually graduate without an employable skill set. “This partnership will help us expand our reach and deliver our expertise to regions which have been asking for this for a long time,” commented Sadiya Sabera, CEO of The Hacking School.
In 2012, Meraj Faheem and his team at Money Messenger tried to locate the rarest resource in India: competent developers. In 6 years, Faheem grew exponentially over the years, capturing majority market share in the coding boot camp industry worldwide, as The Hacking School joins iCollege Australia.
The Hacking School provides students with in-person and online training programs in coding, web development, mobile development, blockchain, UI/UX, and growth hacking in India and more than 15 cities worldwide. The latest merger adds those boot camps to iCollege’s mostly university level portfolio. Hence, extending its reach outside the traditional classrooms. The Coding Bootcamp graduates will now also be awarded diploma certificates in Software Engineering, securing an opportunity to get placed on an international level.
Ashish Katta calls this collaboration, “A big win towards eliminating the back row in higher education.”
Founded in 2013, Hyderabad-based The Hacking School is a detailed, modern approach to teaching full-stack web and mobile software development via code.in. The number of programs powered by The Hacking School has multiplied considerably from a single course offering at their Hyderabad location to locations in Australia, UAE and USA.
“As technology becomes more important in our lives, just having a diverse group of tech people isn’t going to be enough; it’s about having a say in the future of technology. I want to give India what it needs. We need creators, product developers. If you don’t create product developers, you will only have people who will imagine products created by someone else, and until then you’ll never be a superpower. For you to become a superpower, you have to create something! Having worked with the Government of Telangana as an Innovation fellow and that sense of giving our country, our state, it’s own product that will make the country proud – that sense has become stronger,” said Founder, Meraj.
Revealing their insight into plans and current expansion prospects, he adds, “We also expect to expand our education and learning programs at a school level with our new initiative kids.code. In, It’s a hands-on learning platform with real-time mentor interaction and zero time & geographical constraints. Our futuristic curriculum gives children an edge in virtually every modern industry and can set them up for a lifetime of success. For a new generation of students growing up in a digitally-connected century, all roads lead to code. The need of the hour is to empower children to bring their imaginations to life.”
Meraj talked about the present scenario in an interview with The Indian Express, “Online boot camp was on the cards always- lockdown or no lockdown. Modern-day problems require modern solutions; the way we learn is going to change regardless. All the changes we see are accelerating as a result of this pandemic. The flexibility to schedule your class, choose the program of your choice and 1:1 live interaction with a mentor, is ensuring the outcomes look great.
The COVID pandemic crisis has additionally proven to be rather an opportunity to remind ourselves of the skills students need in this unpredictable world such as informed decision making, creative problem solving, and perhaps above all, adaptability. Our education system must become flexible to ensure these skills become the priority for our students. While we have learned in recent weeks that social distance is a decent method to flatten an infection curve, virtual interaction/collaboration could be the key to powerful yet effective online pedagogy. Online could be the new normal, only time could tell.”
“India is a country of more than a billion people. To ensure our talent is well respected on the world map, and not just treated as cheap labour, we need to lace them up with skills that are not just future proof, but inventors of the future. We believe there will be a huge shift in demand from degree to skills, and we need to focus on that and prepare our masses, i.e. focus on things that matter. With all this, one thing seems super clear- degrees are going to be the new age dinosaurs – extinct.” emphasized Sadiya Sabera, CEO. She adds to say that The Hacking School focuses like no one else on empowering, be it inside the office or outside.
“The Hacking School believes in opening gates to the majority of India, targeting those who are intimidated by coding and not just the experienced lot. They call themselves, “India obsessed and not just India focused.”
In more than six years, the Hacking School has evolved into a giant entity with a respectable image, that makes industry-ready developers, and puts them into the world to take what they deserve.