Queens Students Quadruple Their Income After Learning to Code

An exciting new tech scene is growing in New York City, and it’s not in Manhattan. The Coalition for Queens, a non-profit dedicated to building a Queens Tech ecosystem, recently started a program designed to teach people in the community to code iOS apps.

The mission of the Access Code program is to “teach computer programming and entrepreneurial skills to populations that have been traditionally underserved by the tech sector.”

Access Code class consisted of 21 students who completed an 18-week course where they were taught to code while being mentored and given lessons in entrepreneurship from tech world luminaries.

Six months after the first batch of students finished the course, the evaluations are in. And as Nilay Patel reports in Vox, they’re astounding.

15 of the 21 students have already accepted jobs. But wait:

“…the 15 graduates who accepted job offers have seen their income rise from under $15,000 to an average of $72,190; the other six students are either still in college or have chosen to launch their own startups.”

$15,000 to $72,190!

Vox has the details on the program and actual apps, and you can expect to see more from Access Code in the future. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is a backer of the project and has already raised $10,000. His goal is to raise $50,000 within the next week.

Alexandra DiPalma is a producer for Fusion Lightworks, Fusion’s In-house Branded Content Agency.