Digital Literacy and Coding Expansion

CanCode Communities works to build a more inclusive and vibrant tech talent pipeline and tech sector workforce. We partner with stakeholders – employers, educators, and community members – to create programs that reduce cultural and economic barriers to participating in the tech economy. Ultimately we work to shift mindset about who can work in technology, and to create open access to pathways to joining the tech economy.

We are proposing funds to further expand our model that has been extremely successful in training non-traditional, low income, underrepresented individuals in digital literacy and coding training. Our innovative solution is designed to create a bridge for underserved populations to take their first steps towards careers in technology. By scaling regionally and then nationally,  we will be able to reach more individuals and train them for careers in a rapidly increasing tech sector. 

We are solving two problems with one solution: the lack of digital literacy among the American population and the increased need for workers in tech. According to the NYS Department of Labor’s Long-Term Occupational Employment Projection for 2016-2026, the need for qualified software developers will increase 37% in New York State, with nearly 1,260 projected software job openings in the Capital and Mid-Hudson regions alone. These trends are the same all across America, where there are few innovative training preparations to serve this growth.

A significant challenge for our workforce is digital literacy, especially for workers who don’t have access to education and training. The digital skill gap in the U.S. is becoming more apparent, with more than two-thirds of all workers in the U.S. lacking digital skills. Specifically, 13% of all workers nationwide have no digital skills and 18% have limited skills [NationalSkillsCoalition.org]. Additionally, many workers who face barriers of low-wages are less likely to upskill. According to the NYS Department of Labor’s Long-Term Occupational Employment Projection for 2016-2026, the need for qualified software developers will increase by 37% in NYS, with nearly 1,260 software job openings available in the Capital and Mid-Hudson regions.

Our digital literacy and software programs have been able to serve the community members and employers by creating programs that reduce cultural and economic barriers to participating in the tech economy. We offer classes in Virtual Digital Literacy, which builds on the basics of navigating a computer and the internet. Additionally, we offer software classes that include Automated Web Testing, Front End Web Development, JavaScript, Microsoft Azure and Power Platform, Python for Data Analytics, Salesforce, and SQL/ETL. 

While our initial mission was to grow the pool of qualified technology talent in New York State’s Capital Region, we have since grown into digital literacy training along with our software training programs. We partner with community organizations and education institutions throughout New York State and Massachusetts to develop a sustainable process for our model in that specific region. We host employer roundtables that help us develop in-demand, employer-driven curriculum responsive to workforce needs, while also accelerating our country's ability to begin to have a nation-wide model for high tech and software training that can be utilized by communities all across the country. Our work does not stop once we get the students into our classes. Current students and alumni of our programs benefit from valuable alumni workshops, networking opportunities, resume and career mentoring. 

CanCode Communities was founded in 2016 by Annmarie Lanesey. In 2014, she was looking to hire a Ruby on Rails developer for her software company and encountered difficulties in finding a qualified candidate in the Capital Region. A recruiter approached her, asking whether she would consider a self-taught individual with only two months experience in the language. She decided to give this individual the opportunity to work on a trial basis, sitting with another employee with a four-year degree from a prominent institution. In a short period of time, this individual surpassed his colleague with the computer science degree and began a successful career as a programmer. Another AlbanyCanCode student was working as a janitor at a big box retail store in the city of Albany. He took a class with us and received an internship opportunity with a tech employer. At the end of his internship, the employer offered him a full-time position but another employer offered him another opportunity with higher pay. He started out making $50,000. He has since gotten in touch with us and is happy to announce he is making $80,000 and he bought his first house, which is something he thought he would never be able to accomplish. Another inspiring story is a student who came to us as a long-term unemployed veteran of color. He thrived in our Front End Development and JavaScript courses. Mid-way through the JavaScript class, his laptop broke and he stopped attending class. To assist him, we began our Laptop Lending Library. Laptop in hand, he completed the class and went on to receive employment as an apprentice with a large global company.

 This project will target the hard-to-reach and underrepresented populations like these two students. We aim to reach individuals who are unemployed, underemployed, low income, persons of color, minorities, veterans, immigrants, and individuals who are digitally illiterate. With the program funded by this grant, we will be able to train people on computer use and help them develop the confidence to use these new skills in the workforce, as well as provide quality coding training that will allow them to seek careers in the tech sector. 

 When choosing individuals for this program we will select those who meet the eligibility requirements for WIOA funding, as well as those who live under the ALICE threshold, as determined by the United Way. This project will also be used to target returning adults or adults who wish to continue their education, formerly incarcerated, and single parents. Many of these individuals have not had access to education in technology or more general higher education. 

 At CanCode Communities, we believe in empowering individuals in the workforce and giving hem the power to make the choices they believe are best for themselves. When our students are empowered through training and knowledge they develop confidence in themselves and their skills that will aid them in their careers to seek advancement and advocate for themselves and their coworkers in their chosen fields. 

 CanCode Communities is committed to true diversity in the workplace, and the belief in the innate ability of all to succeed.  We encourage mentorship to help build this confidence as it provides greater knowledge about pathways within an industry as well as resources available to the student. When the student is trained in their industry and has the competencies to complete their job, they continue to grow their skills and innovate. These marketable skills give our students the ability to negotiate for better pay, benefits, and conditions that will improve their lives and families beyond their success in their career.

 We also partner with community organizations to target individuals who would benefit most from taking one of our classes. We partner with the Schenectady Community Action Program, ACCESS-VR, and local county workforce offices to secure funding for students to attend the class, and to recruit candidates for our classes Additionally, when we were in person, we have a partnership with Capital South Campus Child Care Program to offer drop in care services for students in our classes.

Our programs focus on reducing as many barriers into the digital workforce. By training people to enter the digital workforce, we are not just looking to get people employed, but to create pathways out of generational poverty. 

 We provide funding for students who are economically disadvantaged, students of color, women, and Veterans. Our work is to train students on in-demand skills and connect our students with tech employers and career opportunities into the tech sector. With employer participation, we design curriculum, organize projects, and connect our students to the employers through class visits and our Student and Employer Celebration. 

As we continue into our fifth year, our preliminary data indicates that we are succeeding in building a more diverse, inclusive, and talent-fueled tech sector in New York’s Capital Region and across the state. 

Our initial model took place in New York’s Capital Region where we saw success. We then replicated that model in NY's Saratoga County and Hudson Valley region, where we were able to see equal success. We have built sustainable partnerships with local organizations, educational institutions and employers to create our work. We have local community organizations and employers throughout different regions express interest in our work. This is why we believe that our model can be replicated across any region and we are preparing to bring our model into new regions. We are currently developing partnerships in New York City and Herkimer County in New York State as well as the Berkshires in Massachusetts. 

Our solution is innovative because of the support system that our programs offer to our students, as well as the opportunities that we provide for employer engagement. In addition to the skills individuals learn in our programs, every student who enters the program is offered career support services where we help students find career opportunities based on their personal and professional goals. This includes the opportunity to have in class mentor encounters and assistance with resume critiques. CanCode Communities has a robust employer network that supports our work. Members of our employer network serve as in class mentors, volunteer their time for resume critiques and coaching sessions, and come to us for recommendations of candidates when they have open positions. Our program is designed to be responsive to employer needs, and we base our curriculum on what their hiring needs are. We consult industry experts for their input as we build out our syllabi, and teach the skills that fit the current in-demand positions. 

Our core technologies are software and mobile applications. Since March 2020 our classes have been held virtually through Microsoft Teams. We have taught classes in Automated Web and Security Testing, Front End Web Development, JavaScript, Microsoft Power Platform and Azure, Python for Data Analytics, and SQL/ETL. Our Virtual Digital Literacy course covers the basics of G Suites and Microsoft Office.

Our technology that we used is very common, which is why we are trying to train more individuals in this software. We use Microsoft Teams as the platform to perform our classes.

Our organization uses the Microsoft Teams platform to perform all of our virtual classes. This means that we create accounts for each student but it is up to the student to create a safe and secure password.  There is a security risk and password breaches. We mitigate these risks by taking precautions on our Microsoft platform and encouraging our students to take steps to secure their passwords. We also encourage our students to change their passwords often to reduce the risk of a password breach. We use these practices throughout our organization.

CanCode Communities serves roughly 250 adults annually in our workforce program. This includes our digital literacy and software classes. Our current summer cohort we are serving 82 students from a total of five classes. In five years, we hope to have service for roughly 1,250 adults.

We track a number of board-directed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on a monthly basis to help us analyze our program’s impact. The KPIs include participant’s demographic information on gender, race, educational attainment, income upon entry and completion, veteran status, number of courses taken, employment information prior to enrollment and after graduating, and salary change. Key measures for this upcoming program year will be: Adult Workforce Programs Enrolled Goal: 355; Adult Workforce Programs Receiving Aid Goal: 85%; Median Income Increase Goal: $15,000; Youth trained Goal: 500;  percent of participants who are women or persons of color Goal: 75%. More specifically, with these funds we will work to serve 25 students in Western Massachusetts in 2022. Siena College Economics Professor Arindem Mandel and Economics student Manny Lo conducted research analyzing our data and found that the return on investment for completing our program is almost 11.5 times in just the first year. Over the next five years we intend to train more youth and adults as we expand and continue to increase our median income increase goals. 

We plan to achieve these numbers through our partnerships with local community organizations throughout our regions. These partnerships have become crucial to getting the word out about our work. We will continue to bring more employers into our network, giving our students a more robust, inclusive employer network. We plan to continue our marketing strategies through social media to reach more people in the regions, specifically the “harder to reach” population. 

We track a significant number of data points to analyze our program impact and outcomes. The data we analyze includes our program participants’ individual demographic information on gender, race, education, income upon entry and program completion, veteran status, number of courses taken, employment information prior to enrollment and after course completion, and salary change.

We have used this data to inform a number of shifts since we began analyzing our program outcomes. For example, our data shows that students who take multiple courses receive higher salary increases, and we have made sure that our curriculum can be approached as an arc across multiple classes. 

The data has also informed our recruitment process. Because our organization was founded to make the tech workforce more diverse and equitable to underrepresented groups, we knew that we would not be achieving that goal if our typical student matched the demographic of the incumbent workforce. This demographic data led to us working closely with community-based organizations that are already providing services to underrepresented groups. Since making this shift we can report that women and people of color make up nearly 75% of the individuals in our program. 

We have 6 full time employees, 2 part time employees,  3 contractors, and 2 vendors.

The CanCode team has executed multiple Virtual Digital Literacy and coding classes since the start of COVID-19 pandemic. These classes were created as a result of the need for upskilling that were critically needed since employment and schools shifted to virtual environments. We have held several classes throughout New York State. We have instructors from all walks of life, including instructors who were once students at CanCode. Our instructors have experience with multiple technologies, which helps to create a sound background for technical learning. In addition to our instructors, we invite employers and community partners into classes to speak with students about the local employment landscape and the role they have in it. Having a diverse group of instructors, employers, and community partners helps our team better understand and provide for the individuals that we serve.

Founded in the belief that all people have the aptitude to work in the technology sector, CanCode Communities was created to shift the mindset about who can work in technology; reduce the cultural, social, educational and economic barriers to participating in the tech economy; and provide pathways to essential education and training that unleash the career potential of underserved and underrepresented individuals, and enrich communities through partnership and collaboration.

 Guided by our steadfast belief in the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, CanCode Communities considers the following to be tenets of our organizational philosophy; we will strive to engender diversity, inclusion, and equity together with our vision and mission for the benefit of those we serve; we aim to recognize and address inequities in our policies, programs, and services; we will investigate underlying assumptions that interfere with our diversity policy; we commit to advocating for systemic inequities that impact our work at the board level and address it according to this policy and in accordance with our mission; we commit to being transparent about diversity in all our interactions; we commit to leading with respect and tolerance, and we encourage all board members, staff and students to express this in their work within our organization.

 We firmly believe that a diverse and inclusive board is best positioned to provide exceptional governance that has a positive impact on the people, organizations and communities we are privileged to serve.

CanCode Communities is applying for the Digital Workforce Challenge because we believe that digital literacy and technology education is crucial for the expansion of the U.S. economy. The data that is available now about the current state of the digital skills gap in the U.S. is alarming. CanCode Communities’ Virtual Digital Literacy program was initially designed to create a bridge for underserved populations to take their first steps towards careers in technology. Now more than ever this program has the opportunity to change the lives of those who can participate. In addition to our Digital Literacy program, our software class have proven to empower individuals to gain technical skills that can help raise their income, help their families, and even stop the cycle of poverty. 

Funding from Solve will help us develop programs that provide digital skills training to more individuals in communities across the north east. This opportunity will connect the “hard to reach” and underrepresented populations to access quality education and networking opportunities with technology employers. 

Our goal is to partner with community organizations and employers that are local to the specific community that our students are residents of. Partnering with local community organizations and employers helps us reach more individuals, who are considered non-traditional tech talent,  to gain quality tech training. Not only do we want to give individuals quality training, we want to give them job and internship opportunities. Our community organizations and employers help us with the resources we need to recruit, train, and find opportunities for residents throughout the communities who we serve.

Our organization would need help with achieving our goals by hosting employer roundtables, workshops, information sessions and providing funding for our students.

Partnerships with large global technology companies and the United States Government that develop and scale tech-driven workforce development programs designed to train the workforce of tomorrow will be the key to the U.S. economy’s growth in the next decade.  We believe our model can be used in communities across the United States and we will use this grant to begin to scale our work into communities all across the country.

• Microsoft (current partner)
• Facebook (current partner)
• Service Now
• Apple
• U.S. Government