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Pathways to Tech: Removing Barriers for Women & Non-Binary People

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3 min read

Background

Canada Learning Code (CLC) is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to empowering all people in Canada with the digital skills they need to prosper in the tech industry by offering beginner-friendly learning experiences coast to coast to coast. Just like Juno, CLC envisions an inclusive future for the digital world and believes digital skills are tools of empowerment. To further available learning journeys, CLC partnered with Juno College, to look for ways to remove barriers to participation for individuals looking to pursue a career in web development.

The Challenge

Technology jobs are one of the fastest growing sectors in Canada with over 50% of today’s jobs requiring technology skills. In the next decade, this number will increase to 77%, which means that people working in traditional careers will need to level up their tech skills to meet this growing demand.

With this reality in mind, Canada Learning Code recognized the need to develop learning opportunities for underrepresented genders that will allow them to grow in their current roles or make a career change into this booming industry. From there the question became: how can we work alongside a learning institution that will meet the unique learning needs of underrepresented genders and help them break into the tech industry?

Partner Spotlight

Pathways to Tech: Removing Barriers for Women & Non-Binary People

About Pathways to Tech Pilot Program

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  • Company Details
    The Pathways to Tech Pilot Program was built by Canada Learning Code and Juno College, in Partnership with Microsoft.
  • Date Founded

    The program launched for the first time in 2021.

The Approach

Canada Learning Code and Juno worked together, in partnership with Microsoft, to build a pilot program that gives women and non-binary students access to tech training that would help them kickstart a career in tech.

For the Pathways to Tech pilot program, Canada Learning Code invited learners from their Ladies Learning Code workshops. These learners had a good foundation of digital skills and were interested in continuing their learning to pursue a career in the tech industry.

After meeting with Juno’s Student Success Consultants and learning more about the possibilities of a career in tech, 65 candidates were registered for Juno’s part-time Web Development course, at no cost. This beginner-friendly course gave students a foundational understanding of coding, hands-on practice, and a supportive, inclusive community to grow with.

This course also gave students the skills they needed to be set up for success in our full-time Web Development Bootcamp, which is designed to help people from non-technical backgrounds make a career change into web development. Juno College also reserved 40 Income Share Agreements for candidates who wanted to move into our Web Development Bootcamp, with the goal to employ 45-55 of these adult learners in full-time web developer job roles.

The success of this program would be measured in three stages: immediate, intermediate, and ultimate. Immediate outcomes focused on helping learners build confidence in their coding skills. Intermediate outcomes would encourage students to continue applying, developing, and growing their coding skills. Ultimate outcomes would set students up for success to become leading tech professionals.

Partnering with Juno allowed Canada Learning Code to expand the opportunities they could provide to underrepresented learners, and help them break into the tech industry.

It has been so inspiring and truly an honour to have worked with all the wonderful Pathways to Tech participants through one of the most difficult years we’ll ever remember. The hard work each student put into learning a new technical skill provided hope, excitement and confidence for a brighter future ahead. - Ali Crandall, Student Success Consultant at Juno College

The Impact

The Pathways to Tech program kicked off in May 2020 and by January 2021 all 65 candidates had either enrolled or completed Juno’s Web Development course. As of May 2021, 16 of those students have continued on towards making a career change through Juno’s Web Development Bootcamp. Plus, 79% of the participants that took part in the Pathways to Tech Pilot Student Feedback Survey plan to continue their tech learning journey through Juno College.

I came to Juno from a place of career disillusionment and near-hopelessness. In six months, the amazing team at Juno has helped me pivot my career into web development and restored my confidence in myself and faith in humanity by creating a safe, supportive, and truly caring environment to learn and grow. - Christine Shiels, Web Developer at Visual Capitalist and Pathways to Tech participant. Read Christine's Story.

Meet some of the Pathways to Tech students in the video below:

Interested in learning more?

At Juno, we're always looking to collaborate and work together to make a tech education more accessible to everyone. If you're interested in working together to make this goal a reality, email Ali Crandall, Juno's Business & Partnerships Manager, at ali@junocollege.com to chat about how we can work together.

If you're eager to continue your learning journey, you can:

Find out more about our Bootcamp and why so many students choose to make a career change through Juno.

Learn about the Bootcamp