With your support we are going to launch a coding academy for refugees in Bern. If possible we will open the school mid January and in April our first 10 to 20 students will start their internships.

CHF 23’475

117% of CHF 20’000

117 %
This is how it works

The «all or nothing» principle applies: The project only receives the funds if the funding target is reached or exceeded.

163 backers

Successfully concluded on 13/1/2017

Our idea

We, that’s Dita Prikrylova, founder of a coding academy for girls in Czech Republic (Czechitas), Cornelia Mayer, founder of a catering company where she cooks with refugees in Austria (Topfreisen) and me Christian Hirsig, a Swiss serial entrepreneur, developed the idea during the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative program in June 16.

Together with a local team we decided to launch a pilot project in Bern. The local core team are:

  • Project lead: Christian Hirsig, serial entrepreneur
  • Mentoring lead: Sunita Asnani, social worker
  • Teaching co-lead: Pawel Kowalski, founder of Iterativ
  • Teaching co-lead: Marco Jakob, founder of Effinger and IT-teacher

We are supported by the awesome communities of Effinger and of the Impact Hub.

The Effinger Coworking Space is located in downtown Bern at the Effingerstrasse 10. Our dedicated classroom is at the 1st level.

  • Christian, Sunita, Pawel und Marco
    Christian, Sunita, Pawel und Marco
  • Class Room at Effinger
    Class Room at Effinger

Your support

If you are none of the below or just don’t have the time to support us in person please support our crowdfunding project and like us on Facebook.

Are you a refugee?

The application window closed on December 9th. Nevertheless, if you are a refugee, fluent in English and have some experience in IT please get in touch with us: code@powercoders.org

Are you a coder?

Our curriculum is ready and most of the teachers are already committed. But if you have frontend skills or if you are a full stack developer and would like to teach 1 or 2 days please get in touch with us: https://goo.gl/forms/2ENHXo01j5SwtU4n2

Are you a friend?

We are still looking for some mentors who’d like to pair up with one of our students during the 6 to 9 month program. If you’d like to be a mentor please get in touch with us: mentor@powercoders.org

Are you an IT-company?

We are definitely still looking for companies who are open to offer an internship to 1 or 2 of our very talented students. Please get in touch with us if you like to offer an internship: https://goo.gl/forms/tdMHZvH1JVL1tW1k2

Thanks

We are very blessed to receive the support of the Migros-Kulturprozent as a main partner and the Raiffeisen Bank as a co-sponsor.

The video was produced by Alina Haag and supported by Hauptstadtfilm. Thanks!