The Greater Omaha Chamber’s CAREEROCKIT, a new talent development initiative created in partnership with the AIM Institute, Urban League of Nebraska, Boys and Girls Club and Latino, was named the winner of this year’s Regional Innovation Award.
“CAREEROCKIT is a true community-wide effort,” said Randy Thelen, the Chamber’s senior vice president of economic development. “Our economic development partners were eager to join in, enlist local businesses to participate, and help us launch CAREEROCKIT the right way. They all share in the winning of this award.”
The Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE) awards the honor which recognizes “organizations and alliances that are committed to building strong and vibrant communities through groundbreaking collaboration and program development.”
“Every Chamber in the country is capable of launching their own CAREEROCKIT by pulling together engaged members, local schools and supportive community partners. The key is to channel the work into a focused effort that drives greater collective impact,” said Sarah Moylan, the Chamber’s senior director of talent & workforce.
The April 2017 inaugural CAREEROCKIT brought business and education together to excite and inspire tomorrow’s workforce. More than 11,000 students immersed in career experiences, including tours, workshops and hands-on activities – direct exposure to the array of career opportunities awaiting them in Greater Omaha.
Next year’s CAREEROCKIT will be held February 12-18, 2018.
David Dugger is used to living one step away from homelessness. At his closest point, he was down to his last $70 and living in a crowded storage room of a mobile home in North Platte, Nebraska. Completely surrounded by boxes, he only had enough space to roll out his makeshift mattress — a six-foot- long by two-foot- wide yoga mat.
Despite being in a circumstance where his immediate needs could have easily overridden his long-term goals, Dugger never stopped searching for the path to become “someone of influence,” and an email he sent in desperation to the Nebraska Department of Labor connected him to a not-for- profit organization that changed his life.
His informational meeting with Shonna Dorsey, the co-founder of the AIM Institute’s Interface School in Omaha, was the first surge from a tidal wave of opportunities that have followed him since he started learning web development at the nonprofit dedicated to building the tech community in Omaha through education and career development.
“Shonna has been and continues to be a great mentor to me,” Dugger said. “I simply wouldn’t be the person I am today without her. When I was a student and didn’t think I belonged, she helped me get there. When I didn’t think I was ready to apply for jobs, she encouraged me that I was ready to take that next step. She can see potential and knows how to bring it out of people.”
Since September 2016, by way of crashing on couches in strangers’ basements to get to Omaha, and without any prior web development experience upon arrival, Dugger has learned three programming languages, developed an intranet training website that is used daily by 700 employees from a large private company and is now an instructor at AIM Brain Exchange, where he teaches coding to underrepresented and sometimes socioeconomically disadvantaged teens.
Drawing on his own personal experience, he helps students work through the same frustrations and challenges he faced, and then eight weeks later he is rewarded when he sees that anguish turn into pride when they leave the program as architects of fully functional websites they created from scratch, armed with ready-for- hire web development skills that could lead to high-paying, fulfilling careers in technology.
“I grew up in a relatively low-income family, and ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be influential in some kind of way,” Dugger said. “To see that influence directed toward such a positive potential outcome, specifically their economic mobility – that impact gives me the greatest joy. And they don’t even understand that part yet, but they’re going to find out soon.”
Soon, Dugger will continue to live his dream on a trip across the country. He is one of a handful of Nebraskans boarding the “Startup Bus” bound to New Orleans with a team of strangers who have the shared goal of conceiving and launching a business. The annual competition is designed to empower the tech community and is equal parts road trip, hackathon and global community.
The AIM Institute and Seventy Five North have teamed up to help increase the number of minority youth exposed to technology, specifically in the North Omaha area. According to a study by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there is a lack of diversity in the high tech career field. The Highlander Code camp was created to help close the gap.
The seven-week Highlander Code Camp provided 15 high school students who live and go to school in North Omaha the opportunity to learn website development, collaboration, employment and life skills.
On Friday, July 28 at 3 p.m. students will showcase websites built during camp and receive a certificate to mark their graduation from the program.
When
Friday, July 28, 2017
3 p.m.
Where
AIM Brain Exchange
1902 Howard St.
Omaha, NE 68102
Lincoln-based software design and development company Don’t Panic Labs and Omaha-based AIM Interface School are proud to announce a partnership to provide continuing education for professional software developers in the Omaha area.
Through this partnership, AIM Interface School and Don’t Panic Labs will begin offering advanced software engineering training to corporations seeking to upskill existing tech talent and individuals wanting to build upon their existing skillset.
Don’t Panic Labs began offering its week-long Software Design and Development Clinic in Lincoln earlier this year with the goal of transforming experienced developers into software engineers capable of managing complex software systems. With the belief that a solid software engineering foundation is essential for creating quality software, instructors Doug Durham and Chad Michel wanted to spread the word about the power of great software process and design outside of Lincoln.
“Partnering with AIM Interface School is a tactic to help solve the lack of continuing education for software developers,” said Doug Durham, CTO, co-founder and instructor at Don’t Panic Labs. “Lincoln and Omaha are seeing immense growth in both the startup and corporate innovation sectors, but software training is not keeping up. If our developers are going to solve the next generation of problems, we all need to up our game. We hope that by making our clinics available through AIM Interface School, we’ll increase the chances of success for our entire ecosystem.”
“AIM Interface School is eager to partner with Don’t Panic Labs to offer advanced software engineering training for people in the Greater Omaha area,” said AIM Institute vice president of Tech Education, Shonna Dorsey. “Through this partnership, we will further expand the technology skillset of our students, taking short-term code school training to the next level. This training will, in turn, deliver more well-rounded tech career candidates to our employer partners.”
The advanced training courses through the partnership with Don’t Panic Labs and AIM Interface School will be held at AIM Brain Exchange starting in Fall 2017.
The AIM Institute is hosting a free workshop to teach web development skills to students of all backgrounds, ranging from new to professional web developers, using the curriculum from NodeSchool.io, a hands-on learning approach. Sandi Barr and Andrew Neely, who worked with the related Nebraska JavaScript Conference that concludes this Friday in Omaha, said the goal of the Nodeschool workshop is to introduce more people to the emerging tech community in Omaha by eliminating barriers and providing training in web development and other online skills.
Nodeschool Omaha pairs beginners with mentors who will teach basic programming concepts with JavaScript, giving new developers access to run their code on any browser in the world. Beginners also can start to experiment with other web tools, such as Git and GitHub.
The free workshop is part of the Nebraska JavaScript Conference (NEJS), which connects local tech talent to learning opportunities through career development and educational programs that are in high demand and are central to the AIM Institute’s mission. Lunch will be provided free of charge and is sponsored by Agape Red.
When
Saturday, July 22, 2017
11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where
AIM Brain Exchange
1902 Howard St.
Omaha, NE 68102
