WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) announced on Tuesday that Holberton School New Haven, an innovative college alternative for software engineers, has been named “Murphy’s Innovator of the Month.” Holberton was launched in Silicon Valley in 2016 to address the critical shortage of qualified, diverse software engineering talent. Earlier this year, Murphy visited the New Haven campus and had the opportunity to see the campus, its students, and the truly innovative model in action.

“When I visited Holberton School New Haven, I was blown away by the way they’re transforming education. In order for us to keep up with the new demands of technology, we’re going to have to rethink the way we teach. Holberton brings an innovative curriculum to Connecticut to give residents a chance to gain the skills necessary to compete for these top jobs in the tech industry,” said Murphy.

"In addition to filling the talent gap, we are making it possible for individuals in our region to have access to high-quality education that launches them into a meaningful and rewarding career," said Nadine Krause, Director of Holberton School New Haven. "In bringing Holberton to New Haven, conversations we've had with current and prospective partners, have reaffirmed the massive need for this talent in our state."

Last year, District Innovation and Venture Center (DIVC), a Connecticut based non-profit, announced it was partnering with Holberton to open a campus in New Haven. Currently, Connecticut does not graduate enough people with the skills needed to thrive in tech jobs, creating a challenge for businesses across all industries as they compete to fill critical jobs and navigate the digital transformation. Holberton will help Connecticut close its skills gap and create a pipeline of diverse software engineering talent, which also happens to be one of the fastest growing job types nation-wide.

Holberton’s curriculum combines project-based and peer learning—there are no lectures and no formal teachers. Students acquire practical skills, an understanding of theory through hands-on learning, and the development of actual systems and applications. This guarantees that students possess the skills necessary for the most demanding tech jobs across industries. Holberton's students are hired by top-tier employers, such as Apple, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google. Holberton also boasts one of the most diverse learning institutions in the tech industry, with an automated admission process designed to reduce human bias. 

The higher education institution offers a deferred tuition model and charges no upfront tuition. Instead, graduates are asked to contribute a percentage of their salaries to the school for the first three years of their post-Holberton employment, thereby giving back to the next generation of software engineers.

Holberton School New Haven is located at District New Haven, a tech and innovation hub that is home to a co-working space and other local businesses and entrepreneurs. The campus welcomed its first cohort in January, with over half of the student body identifying as persons of color, and 20% female. To date, the school has partnered with local organizations, including Lockheed Martin Sikorsky, Stanley Black & Decker, iDevices, SeeClickFix, Scroll Network, Digital Surgeons and AVANGRID Foundation.

About Holberton School

Using project-based learning and peer learning, Holberton’s mission is to train the best software engineers of their generation. At Holberton, there are no formal teachers and no formal courses. Instead, everything is project-centered. Holberton gives students increasingly difficult programming challenges to solve and minimal initial directions on how to solve them. As a consequence, students naturally look for the theory and tools they need, understand them, use them, work together, and help each other. Holberton School teaches how to learn instead of teaching a specific tool or programming language. Holberton School is based in San Francisco, with additional campuses in Connecticut and Colombia. Because of its powerful mission, Holberton is supported by leaders from across technology, entertainment, business and sports industries. It is backed by top-tier venture firms Trinity Ventures, Omidyar Network and Reach Capital. Go to www.holbertonschool.com to learn more.

Murphy believes entrepreneurship and innovation are the building blocks for a strong economy. In the U.S. Senate, he has introduced two bipartisan pieces of legislation to incentivize angel investors to put more money into startup companies – the Angel Tax Credit Act and the Helping Angels Lead Our Startups (HALOS) Act. Startup companies create an average of 2 million jobs each year.

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