Charlene and Liliana discuss closing the gap in diversity in careers in tech. Learning to code can be a beneficial skill for traditionally underrepresented demographics, leading to more employment opportunities. The video and a transcript of the conversation are below.

Recorded Voice:         This is Digital Anarchist.

Charlene O’Hanlon:   Hey everybody, welcome back to Techstrong TV. I’m Charlene O’Hanlon and I’m here now with Liliana Monge, who is the cofounder and CEO of Sabio Coding Bootcamp. Liliana, thank you so much for joining me today, I really do appreciate it.

Liliana Monge:           Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to have this conversation.

O’Hanlon:   Excellent, excellent. Well we are happy to have you here, especially because I, I really do appreciate the efforts that you guys are doing through your coding bootcamp and really want to give you guys a little boost up if you will by a little bit of free promotion.

                                 But let’s talk about what you guys are doing. What, tell me a little bit about Sabio Boot, ah, Coding Bootcamp.

Monge:       Yeah, so we started in the fall of 2013 in Los Angeles. Back then we had a very singular focus to make sure that the LA ecosystem was really going to be diverse. There was you know Los Angeles kind of at one point in time really lived in the shadows of San Francisco, of Silicon Valley and you know I would say in 2010, 2011 things really started to get heated up, more venture capitalists started to come into the state, a lot more companies started going public, such as Cornerstone OnDemand. So we knew what was going to happen in terms of all of this amazing wealth creation and jobs.

                                 So my partner and I, my cofounder, Gregorio and I, decided that we wanted to make sure that the ecosystem in California and Los Angeles was going to be diverse. So we set up a really innovative program that allows any adult who is smart and motivated to become a software developer within a very short period of time. So it’s very practical training. We were a hundred percent dedicated to helping women, more Latinos, more Black people, people who are underrepresented in tech like military veterans join this innovation economy.

O’Hanlon:   That’s great, that’s great. And I’ve spoken with folks in other cities who basically have the same idea to, to really bring up the, you know rise up the traditionally underrepresented communities when it comes to technology. And it really surprises me how many start with these coding bootcamps or these coding classes. It seems like that is kind of the cornerstone of so many IT jobs these days. So I mean do you see a lot of folks entering the tech space using that particular avenue, the coding or, or is it do you think that it is kind of fundamental these days?

Monge:       So I do think it’s definitely fundamental and it is a solution that can be applied pretty much throughout the United States or the world at this time, especially because we see the cost of hardware has come down significantly. That is a barrier to entry, right? You have to kind of have your own machine which is you know that, that needs to run VC software. As we all know software engineers run quite VC software. So you have to start with a price point of somewhere around you know $1500.00 to $2000.00 so that every person has the equipment they need, so that can be a barrier.

                                 However, once if you find a way to overcome the hardware barrier, you also have to make sure that there’s reliable internet, right, because all the information is on the internet, you’re posting to AWS Cloud probably your code and things like that. So there are two barriers.

                                 But then the last component, which is curriculum and practical training to become a software engineer I would say that is probably the most prolific. There is so much curriculum out there. So we decided to build our own custom curriculum. However, there are other organizations that release curriculum that’s available. There’s also a bunch of free stuff. Vendors many times have free resources. So it is a very wonderful solution to help any population.

                                 You know there’s so much going on right now. Like let’s say in Appalachia where the economy is changing and so people are like, “Is this a possible solution?” Miami is going through a massive transformation, right? They were known for hospitality, for travel, for leisure and now it’s just got this massive tech injection. So you can see how you can really take a coding bootcamp and kind of pluck it anywhere and if there is an ecosystem that’s going to support it, it can definitely create an amazing tech workforce anywhere in the country.

O’Hanlon:   Yeah, I, I find it especially in, in urban areas that these coding bootcamps are, are cropping up. And I wonder if that’s also kind of I don’t want to call it a “substitute,” but maybe another avenue for especially kids coming out of high school that don’t really have maybe the means to go to a four-year college and then there are some people who don’t see the value in a four-year college, they just want to do the tech school route and get, get a basic understanding of what they need to do and then, and then go out and enter the workforce.

                                 So do you see these, ah, the important or the, the popularity of these coding bootcamps do you see them as more of a kind of a just a step for or these transitional and especially traditional under-represented communities a way for them to, to get the resources, to get the education they need without having to spend four years in college? Or do you see it more as they’re looking at it as, “I don’t want to go to college, but I do want to learn a trade and I want to…you know I see that there is value in coding because tech is the future.” So where, where are you kind of seeing people joining the bootcamps from?

Monge:       Yeah, so that’s a fantastic question. When we began we thought we were going to be able to take students who graduated from high school and enroll in the program. However, we have found that 18-19-year-olds are a little bit too young to think about, “In three months I’m going to be a professional.”

O’Hanlon:   Okay.

Monge:       So we will enroll people who are that young and there’s always like 1 out of you know 40 that are 18 or 19, however, across the county and coding bootcamps you’re right did start in all the major metros had their own coding bootcamps.

                                 We see people who are more about 21 to about 25. So it’s individuals that have some type of life experience, maybe they’ve worked a little bit, maybe they did some community college, or maybe they got a degree that didn’t allow them to really participate in the economy in a meaningful way. So we’ve met so many music majors, so many psychology majors, even people who have you know a general business degree you know might have a hard time finding their footing in the economy.

                                 So we find that people who have some type of life experience, whether you’ve worked in retail and now are a little more mature you know and you’re really thinking about,” Okay, I want a career that’s going to offer me a lot of opportunities,” those are really the people that we’ve seen across the country decide to participate in the coding bootcamp. I would venture to guess that it’s the space that’s a little more mature, it might move a little bit younger, but right now we haven’t seen a massive demand from the 18- or 19-year-olds.

O’Hanlon:   Okay. So I know when you got started it was really a focus on getting the underrepresented communities, the Latina community and you know just addressing a need that was going to exist in the LA area, but what, have, have you seen that demographic changing with your bootcamps as you’ve progressed? Has, has it been less about making sure that you know these traditionally underrepresented communities and, and, but it’s become more of a kind of a general population that have been attending the bootcamps?

Monge:       Yes, definitely. So we did see that big shift and especially you know in 2020 when COVID hit Sabio had to go into a hundred present live remote environment, right? So starting in April and May we really were able enroll a person who was in Texas, a person who was in Chicago, because all you needed was your laptop and strong access to the internet. So we have seen that the demographics of our coding bootcamp have become you know they’re very diverse. Where we will have you know Latinos, African Americans, we have a massive women in tech scholarship, we do a lot to try to encourage ladies to come to the program and support them post-graduation.

                                 But one of the things that we weren’t aware of when we started was that there’s actually a large military veteran population that is very well suited for coding. That we discovered maybe two or three years into the coding bootcamp. So now a good percentage of the people in the program are military veterans. So we’ll have people who actually live around the world, because veterans I don’t know have seen the world and they, they discover beautiful parts. And so it’s become a really diverse community in a unique way that we weren’t really anticipating.

                                 But what we want is basically our training room to look like America, right? An America super diverse, super fantastic and that’s who should be participating in the innovation economy. We think everyone should give it a consideration, give it thought, try it a little bit and decide for themselves if it’s something that they want to do professionally.

O’Hanlon:   I, I think – I love that, I think that’s, that’s amazing that you guys are doing that. It’s interesting to think about. I, I have a 12-year-old son and you know he codes every day and he doesn’t even realize that he’s coding it, that he’s doing coding. We’re, you know I’m in awe of what he’s able to do on, on a regular basis. It’s not anything – I mean obviously I could learn how to code at some point, but I think we’re gonna, we’re, we’re kind of reaching this, this point in time where it’s not really going to be a question of, “Do you want to learn how to code,” it’s just you know you’re gonna learn how to code, it’s going to be kind of ingrained like you know like math or English or anything like that.

Monge:       Right.

O’Hanlon:   It’s just going to be part of, you know part of our everyday lives.

                                 So do you, do you foresee in the future that you might see kind of a shift in the, in people’s attitude regarding coding and, and you know and then you know maybe have as a result maybe your curriculum is going to be shifting into maybe other areas?

Monge:       Yeah, so I think there’s opportunities on both sides. I mean we’ve seen that you know there’s been a national movement for Hour of Code, right?

O’Hanlon:   Mm-hmm.

Monge:       So in December during Computer Science Week most elementary kids will sit down and actively say like, “I am coding today.” So they’re developing the digital proficiency from an early age, which is fantastic.

                                 There are also a lot of after-school curricular activities that are related to coding and robotics. So I think that there has to be like you said a general understanding of what code is, how it operates, have some kind of fluency in it.

                                 There are also a lot of tools that help people do low-code automation, right? So there’s that development. But then there’s the development on the other side of the dumbbell which is you’re going to have a lot of AI and machine learning. We’re doing a lot of stuff with autonomous vehicles. I think I’ve seen that they, they showcased the tractor that’s a hundred percent autonomous, right? That the farmer’s controlling just with his phone.

O’Hanlon:   Mm-hmm.

Monge:       So I think there’s really exciting things that are happening across the spectrum, the technical spectrum and so it is going to become more incumbent for people to have some type of digital literacy and I think it just depends on how much…

                                 Right, like you and I probably I don’t know how much – like I never finished calculus, I could, I tried it, I could never get there.

O’Hanlon:   [Laughs]

Monge:       And now as an adult running a business I’m like, “What even is it,” right? Like do, who really needs it?

O’Hanlon:   Right, right,

Monge:       Versus, “I need algebra,” you need spreadsheets, you need concepts of finance. So I think it’s going to be something similar. There’s going to be a big spectrum. Does that make sense? Did I answer that?

O’Hanlon:   Yeah, no, no, it, it makes, it makes total sense. You know you brought up AI and machine learning and other areas where we’re going to be heading.

                                 You know I was just talking to somebody earlier today about the metaverse and, and you know now that, now that we’ve got these entire you know universes that are being constructed virtually and people can actually interact and, and it’s nothing like Second Life. You know if anybody remembers Second Life 20 years ago people thought that that was going to be the next big thing and that was a big bust. But you know the metaverse and, and now companies are, are talking about using holograms to, to have you know interactions with other people.

Monge:       Yeah.

O’Hanlon:   There’s so many things that are going to be coming that, that just are kind of mind blowing. That we are going to need this next generation of you know the kids today who they are the next generation of coders and they’re the ones who are going to create these new universes for us and all these technologies and capabilities. So I think it’s really, really amazing that, that they’re getting this foundation now so that they can start kind of… They don’t have to think about the actual idea of coding, you know getting over that hurdle, they can just think about all of the possibilities that are, that are open to them and that they can provide to, to, to their customers in the future. So good stuff there.

                                 I love the idea that you know we’ve got, we’ve got these coding camps that do really give a nice foundational base to anybody and that’s, that’s an important thing. And anything that we can do to, to really blur the lines between equity and parity when it comes to underrepresented populations in technology I think is a really, really good thing.

                                 So Liliana I do want to thank you very much for what you guys are doing. I think it’s a great thing.

                                 If folks are interested in finding out more about the Sabio Bootcamps how can they get it? Do you have a website you want to point them to?

Monge:       Yes, certainly. So it’s just our name: S-A-B-I-O-.L-A, because we started in Los Angeles. If you go to the website you’re going to find a bunch of different resources. We have a lot of introductory courses that are absolutely free, so that people can dip their toe in the water and say, “Okay, is this something that might interest me?”

                                 From what I’ve learned a lot of people really describe getting a little bug when they wrote something and something happens and they’re just like, “Oh wow.”

                                 But I think a lot of people are you know we’re, we’re makers, right? We, we evolve to work with our hands, to have tools and to build things, so this is one of those ways that we can really be creative and build something that other people can use or maybe you just build a solution for yourself that you really need, that no one else has built.

O’Hanlon:   All right, well that’s, that’s such great stuff. I do appreciate it. Again, thanks for joining me today on TechStrong TV. Liliana thanks again for your time.

Monge:       Thank you for having me.

O’Hanlon:   All right everybody please stick around we’ve got lots more TechStrong TV coming up, so stay tuned.

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