Learning to code was the thing that unlocked it all for me. I learned to hack in Basic during high school. I parlayed that into a programming job in college, which led to my first job out of college, which then led to a job that helped me pay for graduate school, which led to a job in venture capital.
That is why I have made getting computer science broadly deployed in the K-12 system in NYC and around the US the philanthropic effort that I put most of my charitable time into. I really believe that learning to code can put you on a path of opportunity.
So I was excited to see that our portfolio company Codecademy, which helps anyone learn to code online, has a program to provide 100,000 displaced workers a free subscription to their Pro product.
Here is how it works. For every Codecademy Pro membership that is bought, the company is donating 5 to displaced workers.
So far, that has resulted in 50,000 “scholarships” for displaced workers. And I am confident they will reach their goal of 100,000 scholarships for displaced workers.
If you are a displaced worker and want to learn to code for free, you can apply here (need to login first).
And if you want to learn to code and support five scholarships by doing that, you can do that here.
