Codecademy workshop keeps tech meetup scene interesting
NEW YORK–Tech meetup groups have taken most of the summer off, but Codecademy took the quiet time to hold an HTML and CSS workshop of its newly released web projects last August 20 at its office in midtown Manhattan with the people behind it in attendance–Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski.
Now home to 24 million users since its inception in 2011, Codecademy has a large user base learning coding in a more engaging and interactive way. Last night, Codecademy talked about the importance of learning coding with web projects in mind instead of just learning coding.
For those who haven’t heard of it, Codecademy is an online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 8 different programming languages, including Angular JS, Javascript, jQuery, Python, PHP and Ruby as well as markup languages HTML and CSS. It also provides a forum where enthusiasts, beginners, and advanced coders can come together and help each other.
The founders believe in providing education opportunities to everyone. That has been central to its goal for years and it’s not going to change, but it also has to find a way to sustain itself. It’s tricky for Codecademy because people are used to it being free.
Question is, Can it sustain itself as a free coding site or does it need to monetize itself eventually? Fortunately, it has always raised money to help keep its platform free. It raised $2.5 million in Series A funding in October 2011 an $10 milion in Series B fundin in June 2012. The latest round was for an unspecified amount.
Beyond the platform, Codecademy’s actual physical workshop is doing tech meetups a favor. It’s helping keep the tech meetup scene alive– as people who pursue it may just produce the websites they want to demonstrate to tech meetups in the city someday.
