Free Coding Bootcamps, and The Business Behind Them

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When Inbaraj Suppiah was last on this show, JomHack was a hackathon company - designing and running 48-hour innovation sprints for corporates and government agencies.

It is now, to a considerable extent, a school.

For the past year JomHack has run a free 30-day Python bootcamp. Daily classes, no fees, and no coding background required. 380 students have been through it, every place sponsored by JomHack itself. 

Running alongside that is something considerably larger. In 2024 Gamuda approached Inbaraj to design and implement a free AI Academy, in partnership with Google Cloud, training people in fullstack AI development over three-month cohorts. It is now on its eighth cohort in Kuala Lumpur, its sixth in Sabah, and its maiden edition in Sarawak . 

All of it free to the participant. Which raises the obvious question: who pays, and why?

Inbaraj Suppiah returns to the studio to talk about how a company built on hackathons ended up building a talent pipeline - and whether giving away training is marketing, or a business model.

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