Lightning Pitch: Codesmith – Immersive software engineering academy

ELEVATOR PITCH

Software engineering immersive academy and learning platform.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION

Codesmith teaches students across the U.S. modern programing with JavaScript so they can take roles as software engineers or launch their own ventures after graduating. We’re transforming software engineering education through our immersive platform and academies at schools across the U.S., including Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, and the leading career accelerator in Los Angeles.

Our founders had the privilege to attend Harvard, Oxford, and Yale, but saw the limitations of what they’d learned—the need for practical experience with code, and the empowering impact of being able to build and execute on ideas. They set out to solve this problem for students while they’re still at school—to unite their theoretical studies with the practical ability to build with code. The result was Codesmith.

We prepare students for the most fulfilling, high-paying and impactful software engineering roles and to help them start their own ventures. Every student graduates with the ability to build, and with a portfolio of live projects. Students include CS majors, liberal arts students, and MBAs—working together to learn the five pillars of modern programing as we see them: CS fundamentals, frontend, backend, mobile development, and engineering mentalities—all taught in Javascript (we teach mobile using ReactJS Native).

FOUNDERS

Chad Troutwine is CEO at Codesmith and founder of Veritas Prep—the second largest test prep company in the world. He has invested in numerous startups and is owner of Freakonomics Media. He has also produced 15 films including Print the Legend, winner of the SXSW Jury prize and one of the first Netflix Originals. Chad attended Harvard and Yale Universities.

Will Sentance is CTO at Codesmith. He’s founder of Icecomm, the leading platform for WebRTC communication. Prior to Codesmith, Will was CEO at Ownly and a software engineer at Gem.co. Will graduated from Oxford University and Harvard University.