With TechGrounds, anyone can become an IT pro

Accessible IT courses in TechGrounds districts

"TechGrounds was started about eighteen months ago. It's a spinoff of TechConnect, an initiative by the Amsterdam Economic Board," explains Saskia. "We saw that there were lots of IT jobs being advertised, and that the number kept growing. So we set ourselves the goal of training people up to do those jobs, by stimulating interest and bringing in talent from underrepresented groups. We want to make the tech sector accessible to everyone, and give people the opportunity to build careers in IT. Our model is based on the MolenGeek initiative set up four years ago in the Brussels district of Molenbeek. The first TechGrounds hub was in the New West district of Amsterdam. We've since added hubs in Amsterdam South-East and Zaanstad. In November, we're starting courses in Rotterdam as well. Free IT courses are available in the TechGrounds districts of all those cities. People can do the courses even if they don't have any existing IT knowledge or qualifications. We prepare them for jobs in cloud engineering, web development and salesforce development. By the time they leave us, they are proper IT professionals ready to enter the jobs market."

Learning from and with each other

"Before setting up a programme in a district, we have a good think about what groups we want to appeal to. We use online marketing techniques to reach potential participants. We also look to establish links with community centres and local councils. Another important feature of our approach is a very thorough participant selection process. After applying, would-be participants attend an information session and a taster day. Using individual group assignments and training modules, our learning coaches select suitable participants. Women always make up half of the people we choose. Once we've made our selection, the participants start a full-time course together, which lasts four to six months." "TechGrounds courses are based on 'peer learning' – learning from and with each other. Soft skills form an important part of every course. For example, we teach participants what kind of behaviour is appropriate in an IT team, so that they're ready for careers in professional settings. We cover things such as communication, teamwork, deployability and self-management."

Progression to the labour market

"Entrepreneurs and companies active on the IT labour market are closely involved with the TechGrounds courses. Thanks to our existing personnel and clients, we've got a large network of key partners. One of them is the City of Rotterdam, who have given us tremendous help setting up our TechGrounds presence in Rotterdam. The City helps us find participants and puts us in contact with firms that are looking for IT talent. Then various companies support courses with contributions in kind. That involves things such as making people available to act as career buddies for our participants, or giving career workshops about real IT projects to smooth progression to the jobs market. And we're always open to ideas if partners want to run technical workshops on particular topics for our participants."

Support from SIDN Fund

"On 23 November, we're going to start delivering TechGrounds courses from a new site in Rotterdam. We began generating interest amongst potential participants back in June, and we got the City of Rotterdam involved. We had two hundred people apply, from whom we've now selected twenty participants, who will be starting their chosen courses shortly." "SIDN Fund's support helped us open the Rotterdam hub and refine our soft skills programme. We designed the programme ourselves by drawing on our own experiences and expert input. We've now got the basic structure in place, and the next step is to professionalise what we've got and make it scalable, so that the soft skills programme can be made available at all TechGrounds sites. SIDN Fund's financial assistance enabled us to start a pilot, with a view to digitising the soft skills programme. Digitisation will open the way for scaling up the programme and delivering it efficiently at multiple sites. Digital course content is also easier to refine over time. Support from SIDN Fund was therefore extremely valuable." Marieke van der Kruijs, Project Coordinator at SIDN Fund: "The TechGrounds project is helping to bring talent from more diverse backgrounds into the tech sector and train people up for the jobs market. That's very much in line with SIDN Fund's objective of contributing to a stronger, more inclusive and diverse tech sector."

Ambitions

"Our TechGrounds team has loads of exciting plans for the future. For example, we've set ourselves the goal of training 150 people a year in Rotterdam, running two courses at two sites. We'll then be giving 150 people a year the chance to start a career in IT, particularly people from the southern districts of Rotterdam. Ultimately, we want to make the tech sector accessible to everyone in the Netherlands, and roll out our soft skills programme nationwide," adds Saskia. Want to promote diversity and professionalism in your IT team? Looking for talented new IT people? Visit https://techgrounds.nl/voor-bedrijven/ .