Code Burst

This is the fifth episode in a series covering the story of Mined Minds, a coding bootcamp that set out to retrain out-of-work coal miners for work in the tech industry. First episode: https://soundcloud.com/user-630857765/episode-1-conflicting-coverage Over a year ago, in the early weeks of 2018, a colleague shared with me a story about a coding bootcamp that was looking to train out-of-work coal miners for jobs in the tech industry. Mined Minds was launched in southwestern Pennsylvania by Amanda Laucher, who comes from a family of coal miners, along with her husband, Jonathan Graham. Their organization had received a lot of positive media coverage from outlets like NPR, CNN, and CBS. They, along with other workforce development organizations, had a received a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission of $1.5 million, and they had begun training dozens of future coders. Their model seemed really promising. They would train people for free, and then employ them as apprentices for a time with an affi