Kura Labs (previously Last Mile Talent Development)

Daniel, our program director, is being paid part time, but putting in full time hours, so our first priority is to hire him full time. Our second priority is to hire a team for our second cohort of students which will include 2 instructors (most likely the instructors who taught Cohort 1 if they are available),  as well as hiring 4-5 former students from Cohort 1 as teaching assistants for the 2nd cohort. Lastly, we would like to hire a career coach to work with the students throughout the program and an employer engagement position to recruit more employer partners.  These roles are both important towards the end goal of our program: making sure our students get hired once they complete the coursework. We want to make sure they are prepared to succeed. Once these positions are filled, if there are enough funds, Richard (current co-founder and consultant) will join full time as the CEO.

I was born and raised in the Bronx, just like some of our students. My father had a fifth grade education, so my family grew up in the working class. Unlike my father, I was exposed to education through a college access program, which showed me how important college and education could be. As I realized the impact the program had on me, I knew I wanted to make these types of programs more accessible. What drew me to create this particular program is that it is a way to bridge the gap for students to build social capital. They will have access to better careers and more opportunity for growth both in their jobs and salaries. Kura Labs was designed to address this need by developing an intensive six-month training program to ensure students are ready to be hired upon completion. Within the first 10 years, we will train 15,000 highly-talented students across 16 US cities from under-resourced communities creating $1.5 billion in wealth and will continue to grow the program internationally by training 100,000 students from 30 cities across the world from under-resourced communities creating $10 billion in wealth by our 20th year.

There has been a rapid shift across all industries to leverage cloud computing which has created an unprecedented workforce gap and opportunity to identify, train, and hire a new generation of infrastructure engineers from underserved communities. Kura Labs’ initiative attempts to address a few connected problems. First, it is important to recognize that our current technological revolution is replacing a large swath of middle-class jobs. Future job creation will occur at two extremes--low-income jobs and high-income jobs which will only exacerbate existing racial and income inequities. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated these inequities by automating many jobs and expanding the necessity to work remotely. Employers will accelerate automation to save funds and to prepare for the next crisis.

We have addressed these problems by creating a 6 month training program that prepares under-resourced communities with the skills and experiences that employers need. Phase 1: students complete 16 hours of instruction weekly learning key concepts to be ready to fill DevOp positions. Phase 2: students work on a variety of teams and are assigned simulations. They have to collaborate, manage a budget and solve real-world challenges our employer partners face. Phase 3: Focus on career development as well as management training.

Kura Labs provides a dynamic technical and career-readiness program with the opportunity for students to not only develop skills but also engage in practical work-based experience. Our lab has an edge that other boot camps do not: we are free to students and recruit employer partners who hire our students for full-time jobs, which pay between $75,000-$100,000. Unlike other boot camps, we continue to be in touch with our students once they have completed the classes. We plan to track our students for their first two years at their jobs and provide ongoing professional development via professional certification training. During our program, we offer career prep to our students to prepare them to interview with our employer partners. While our program does focus on DevOps, we also work on resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and help students create their Github accounts. GitHub is actively used by Tech employers to evaluate prospective employees. We also have a revenue-generating strategy: when our employer partners hire one of our students, they pay us $10,000, which is used for program costs for the next cohort. This saves the employer money since they usually pay 20-25% of the annual salary to find talent.

The COVID crisis is posing an additional challenge to under-resourced communities. There has been a dramatic shift to telework in response to the crisis. The problem is less than 30% of workers can work from home and the ability to work from home differs enormously by race and ethnicity. The discrepancy comes down to the fact that we still operate in occupational segregation by race and ethnicity. Only 9.2% of workers in the lowest quartile of the wage distribution can telework, compared to 61.5% of workers in the highest quartile. Kura Labs will work with students who come from the lowest quartile of wage distribution and help them develop the skills and experience to work remotely. Lastly, data illustrates that diversity and inclusion is directly correlated to value creation and a company’s profitability. We partner with colleges and Community Based Organizations to recruit students for our program. There is a mutually beneficial relationship between the student, CBOs, colleges, and the employer. Our hope is to continuously diversify the workplace, and by doing so, not only allow for under-resourced community members to receive higher wages, but also allow for companies to realize how important diversity is in the workplace.