We Ignite Tech

We Ignte Tech Program er et tre mnd ettermiddagskurs som har til hensikt å gi nykommere med IT-bakgrunn muligheten til å oppdatere kunnskapen sin og møte arbeidsgivere slik at de lettere kan få relevant jobb. 12 deltakere ble invitert til våre egne lokaler i Grensen i Oslo sentrum, hvor det også ble tid til mingling og mat i tillegg til faglig input fra blant annet David Honnefer og Hugo Cruz. FINN har hostet ett kurs over to kvelder i tillegg til at vi har bidratt med foredrag i andre kurs. Vi snakket med noen av deltakerne som deltok hos FINN, her er deres tilbakemeldinger på kurset.

FINN participates in a collaboration of getting newcomers into the market by holding Technology courses.

What's the best thing about We Ignite?

The way they teach people. It is nice, comfortable, people-way, and no stress. Have received a lot of new information and learnings.

Why did you join We Ignite tech course at FINN?

I have come to learn something new. I got myself a surprise, it was a bit tougher than I thought - it demanded a bit of experience and knowledge.

What are your expectations of We ignite Tech?

My expectations is to find a job and to learn something new. For this course at FINN I found out I need some more knowledge. Now I got a better idea of what level I have reached.

Has the course and We ignite tech - meet your expectations?

Yes, it has given me new knowledge.

Can you recommend it?

Yes I will. It is not only good for refreshing your skills it is good to learn new things.

Why did you join We Ignite tech? And why are you here at the course at FINN?

We Ignite Tech helps to get closer to the IT career and the Norwegian job market.

For the course at FINN: The course at FINN is more practical way of how to, like a practical workshop which gives a wider scope to what we learn in WIT program.

What's the best thing about We Ignite Tech?

Sharing is caring, they get us all together for a cause. It is just not a technical course, it is for different skills. They are providing us for example soft skills, agile team.

What are your expectations of the course at FINN?

As per the first session, we got a new view of vue (note). The expectations are to get more scope of learning, get introduced to the learning in FINN. It will be useful if we would like to use it in the future.

Has the course at FINN and We ignite tech meet your expectations?

Yes, it was really good sessions. It was a bit tough but not too tough :) We are sure that we need to practice.

Can you recommend it?

Yes, of course.

Hi David, you have volunteered to participate in the We Ignite Tech collaboration with FINN by teaching a group in technology. What did you teach?

I taught two courses. The first one introduced Vue.js, which can be a great alternative to React, and we use it in my department at FINN. The second course was dedicated to Node and web frameworks. This way the students can write their own web servers!

Why did you volunteer to hold the courses?

I believe strongly in We Ignite Tech’s cause, I’ve been both new in Norway, and new to coding - so I think it’s a great initiative. I also have quite a bit of teaching experience from the past, so it was exciting to be able to apply that.

What has it given you?

I got to interact with some very bright and engaged students, that’s always fun when teaching!

Why is this initiative (We Ignite Tech) important?

We Ignite Tech is providing a clear and accelerated path into a profession that’s expanding yearly, one is able to grow into, and is a lot of fun. They’re also fostering diversity in the Norwegian workforce, which is awesome!

Meet Thomas, one of the co-founder of We Ignite Tech!

What’s the reason for starting We Ignite Tech?

We were concerned about the fact that many newcomers to Norway with some education or interest for software development would either stand unemployed or ended up working in a position that didn’t match their competences. Our hypothesis was that there was something we could do to help these people getting closer to a work situation in the software development industry.

So we started We Ignite Tech to bring a concrete solution to a double-sided problem: newcomers to Norway with valuable IT skills struggle to find a relevant job while Norwegian businesses desperately need IT competences.

What is your role in this?

I am the co-founder of We Ignite Tech and the designer of the technical part of our web-development program. It is a 3-month evening course that helps newcomers with some programming skills to get started with professional web-development. I teach them what I practice every day as a developer.

Beside that I am also involved in other activities like coaching, recruitment or establishing partnership, together with the other four members of We Ignite Tech.

What has been the goal with this initiative?

Our goal was from the beginning to see our participants entering the Norwegian IT market. It means a job position as a programmer, a practice or internship contract, self-employment or to pursue education in this field.

The result of the courses so far, have you reached the outcome as you wished for?

We finished a first three-month iteration of the program in March this year. So far, 6 of our first 9 participants have now started an IT career in Norway, which is over our initial expectations.

We are now half-way in the second iteration of the program with 10 new participants. This is also an outcome we wanted to reach, being able to run another round of the program.

What has the cooperation with FINN gained this initiative?

Having presentations and technical labs at FINN has been really profitable both for the participants and the program. The participants will be able to use what they learned at FINN in the projects that they will work on in the last month of the program. This initiative also gave them a brief insight of an IT Norwegian work place.

The cooperation with FINN gives an attractive perspective to the We Ignite Tech program. It makes this program more connected to the Norwegian IT market.

And of course, one of the participants to the first round of the program is now working at FINN. This is something we are very proud of.

Thank you to all the participants and the volunteers!