Dive Brief:
- French telecomm and tech entrepreneur and businessman Xavier Neal plans to bring his coding school, 42, to Silicon Valley with the promise that it will teach 10,000 students to code in the next five years — for free.
- TechCrunch reports that the school in a new 200,000 square foot facility equipped with thousands of iMacs, thanks to a $100 million investment, and all students between 18 and 30 are welcome.
- Students are selected via an intense four-week challenge dubbed "the swimming pool," in which prospects are thrown a bevy of coding and logic challenges they are welcome to solve at any time of day between Monday and Sunday. The first U.S. students are expected in November.
Dive Insight:
Given his approach, it's fitting that Neal is also the co-owner of the rights to the song "My Way." While coding bootcamps and other alternative credentialing avenues have gained prominence in recent years, serving as yet another disruption to traditional higher ed's business model, they require some monetary investment for the high-demand skills they provide in a shorter period of time.
42 also eschews the model of having teachers and classrooms, according to TechCrunch, utilizing peer review, projects, internships and gamification to teach students with enough drive within three to five years. For more on the school, check out the video below: