05/02/2023
A personal note from the founder:
RBK launched in Jordan, May 1, 2016. From the beginning we trained 50% refugees and 50% Jordanians. We were the first immersive, career accelerator (coding bootcamp) in the Middle East and the first fully residential coding program on the planet.
My goal when I arrived was to get the program set up and humming and then turn it over to local ownership which I ultimately did in 2019. By this time we had opened a second campus in Tunisia and would soon be launching programs in Gaza and the West Bank.
The cost to run someone through our 19 week program was approximately $10,000 USD. Our funding came from a combination of private and public sources but dried up during the pandemic. As such, RBK paused operations in Jordan in July of 2021 which broke my heart as our staff were some of the brightest stars in the universe.
Over the course of 5 years we ran 15 cohorts in the Levant and helped move 400+ young women and men there into the tech industry. A World Bank study revealed our graduates were starting with salaries twice the average. Some of our grads secured employment at $50,000 per year with no prior background in programming and in a few cases, not even a high school diploma. All refugees who wanted jobs in Jordan found jobs legally despite anti-work laws. They were hired not as 'employees' but as consultants with the same benefits.
To be clear, the success of RBK grads was not due to their ability to connect to an API or build a web app. Despite 1,400 hours of hacking away in Javascript, many were not proficient. Yet they were hired ahead of the 80,000 unemployed software developers with university degrees. How? Because they possessed something university grads lacked and something our hiring partners demanded - character. Through our rigorous training they developed a growth mindset, patience, courage, humility, self-awareness, honesty, empathy, magnanimity, resilience and steadfastness - meta skills necessary to thrive in today's rapidly changing world.
The future of RBK is now in the hands of leadership at our Tunis campus. The good news is they would like to relaunch in Jordan. My hope is they are able to raise the funds and pursue a more sustainable business model. For those interested, please inquire at RBK Tunisia.
If you are interested in following my next project, please find me on LinkedIn.
One final thank you to all the donors, staff, stakeholders and participants. I grew so much as the result of your kindness and care.
With much love and peace,
Hugh Bosely