Adelaide gets the first Australian campus of free global computer coding school, 42, in 2021 via KIK Innovation
Students learned from each other at 42 computer coding schools around the globe, with Adelaide's set up in Pitt Street, Adelaide city, in 2021.
The first Australian campus of free global computer coding school, 42, opened in Adelaide in 2021.
Founded in 2013 by tech billionaire Xavier Niel, 42 (a name taken from Douglas Adams’ satirical The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) had more than 10,000 students from more than 20 countries.
South Australian social enterprise organisation KIK Innovation was the Australian licence holder for 42. With $750,000 in JobTrainer and startup funding from the South Australian government, KIK set up its first school in Adelaide on two floors of Uniting Communities’ Pitt Street, city, building attracting more than 1,000 applications for places soon after it opened.
KIK Innovation and 42 Adelaide founder and chief executive officer Louise Nobes said the school was completely free and anyone over 16 from any background could apply to learn to be a software engineer. Admission didn’t depend on Year 12 results. Potential students took two-hour online memory and logic tests on their capacity to learn computer programming.
Participants did an intensive four-week bootcamp before studying at 42 for qualifications aligned to a diploma in information technology, while also completing paid cadetships with partner companies. Partnerships with employers such as Lockheed Martin, Fleet Technologies and LoftusIT had been made.
Students at 42 learned from each other, breaking down financial barriers of conventional higher education and providing skills for high-tech industries. Students could control what, when and how they learned with the 42 programme and could pursue three main branches of curriculum: design, web and graphics; algorithms; or networks.
Nobes said 42 Adelaide built on KIK Innovation’s ethos of helping solve the “complex issues” of youth unemployment and closing the skills gap. KIK Innovation aimed to reduce youth unemployment in South Australia by providing disadvantaged young people with job pathways: “We undertook a global exercise in 2019 looking for the best educational model that solved those complex issues and came across 42 in France – and from then we haven’t stopped in our pursuit to get it here in Australia." KIK worked with foundation partner Future Industries Exchange for Entrepreneurship (FIXE) on the Australian 42 project.
The 42 Adelaide programme complemented digital education in South Australia, such as courses offered through vocational education and training and the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre.
