Holberton School, a project-based college alternative educating the next generation of software engineers, announced the opening of a new campus in Johannesburg, South Africa. The new school, which is the group's third in Africa, will open its doors to South African students on January 24, 2022.

Holberton School South Africa will welcome its first students on January 24, 2022. Based in Johannesburg, the school aims to train highly-qualified software engineers to meet the growing demand for IT jobs in the country. Around 30 students are expected for the first cohort, who will follow a 12-month program. With three cohorts per year, starting in January, May, and September, the school delivers a fast and high-quality computer science and software engineering- program for all those who wish to learn or improve their software engineering skills.

Students at Holberton School South Africa will, throughout their training, acquire skills required for the jobs of today and tomorrow, namely, Blockchain, Full-stack Web Development, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR/VR).

Holberton School South Africa is partnering with the company Singular System to offer a full scholarship to the first 20 students of its new school as part of this partnership.

"South Africa is one of the most dynamic countries in Africa when it comes to technology and innovation. Today, more than 80% of local companies are turning to artificial intelligence to automate their processes. But the lack of highly skilled tech talent is preventing them to move as fast as they would need.. The creation of our school is a response to this problem," explained Thulani Ntuli, Director of Holberton School South Africa.

Co-founded in Silicon Valley in 2016 by CEO Julien Barbier, Holberton School has enrolled more than 3,000 students worldwide across more than 30 campuses in five continents: America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The new campus in South Africa will be the third Holberton School campus in Africa, after Tunisia, inaugurated in 2017, and Egypt, in 2021. 

"South Africa is an important step for the development of Holberton School in Africa. We are delighted with the success our graduates have had since our first school launched in Africa. 100% of the first graduates from Holberton Schools in Africa have found a job, both from local and foreign companies" said Julien Barbier, CEO of Holberton.

Faced with the technological changes that the business world is experiencing, and marked by a constant need for digitalization of processes and tools, African companies still lack qualified IT software engineers but they are full of promising and talented young people.

Thanks to the high quality of its training, Holberton School intends to enable this generation to gain faster access to a career. And as a consequence, they will help the continent to be more competitive on the World stage.

The opening of Holberton School South Africa is another very important step for Holberton, Inc. -the company behind the Holberton School network and the OS of Education toolkit- toward its goal of training 500,000 African students by 2030.