WeWork, the space, community and services provider, has officially opened its first UK-based education offering, Flatiron School – an on-campus and online coding school – at its Finsbury Pavement building in London. As part of the initiative, WeWork and Flatiron School have also announced a partnership with WhiteHat, a company “focused on encouraging access, inclusion and diversity in tech”.
The partnership, which will start later this year, will include a new course designed to help apprentices gain tech skills and be open to non-graduates using the apprenticeship levy to fund their education.
In addition to the WhiteHat course, Flatiron’s London campus will initially provide three on-the-ground programming courses: a full-time software engineering immersive course (15 weeks); a part-time front-end web development course (10 weeks); and a part-time data science course (10 weeks); its online offering is already available.
“Our goal is to open up opportunities and access to cutting-edge tech skills for people from all walks of life.”
WeWork and Flatiron School are also partnering with a number of other companies with a focus on “women in tech, diversity and inclusion”, including Codebar, Women Who Code and AllBright. Through these partnerships, WeWork and Flatiron School are pledging to give over £1 million in scholarships to underrepresented groups in the UK technology ecosystem – including women and people from disadvantaged backgrounds – during the campus’s first year of operation.
A new Colorintech partnership will see more than £370,000 worth of scholarships dedicated to black and minority ethnic (BAME) individuals interested in learning to code.
Avi Flombaum, Dean and CPO of Flatiron School, said: “Our goal is to open up opportunities and access to cutting-edge tech skills for people from all walks of life, whether they are young and fresh from university or professionals looking to upskill or change careers later in life.”
Ashleigh Ainsley, Co-founder of partner organisation Colorintech, said: “With these scholarships, we’ll be able to help remove some of the barriers of learning for ethnic minorities who want to learn how to code. Flatiron School’s courses will allow our fellows to learn, upskill and compete in the innovation economy.”
