Interview: "Le Wagon", intensive web developer training, opens in Lausanne
The "Coding Bootcamp" is a recent formula that meets a great need for training in our era of digitalization. Le Wagon has been offering a highly intensive format for the past 5 years, and is expanding rapidly worldwide. Now it's Switzerland's turn to benefit from its program, thanks to Thibault Jaime, a convinced Alumni who is starting up in Lausanne. You can already register for the first training session, which starts on January 7, 2019. Until then, come and discover the Wagon concept via free 2-hour workshops. Meet Thibault, who explains all about this welcome initiative.
Alp ICT: Le Wagon, in a few words?
Thibault: The Wagon is a Coding Bootcamp, where you learn to do web development very intensively, in just 9 weeks. You leave the course as a credible junior developer in a startup or as a freelancer.
Alp ICT: Who is your program aimed at?
Thibault: Le Wagon is open to all, but in our experience, we see four main types of customer:
- Students coming out of business school, for example, who want to do something concrete.
- People who want to advance their careers, move up to an important position within a startup, or retrain between jobs. They have between 5 and 10 years' experience, but have realized that understanding tech and knowing how to use it has become essential as companies digitize.
- Entrepreneurs between the ages of 25 and 45 (with no age limit), who want to be able to build their first prototype, to test the concept themselves and present it to investors.
- Graphic/design freelancers who already code a little, but would like an extra string to their bow to better serve their customers.
Alp ICT: How did this initiative come about?
Thibault: The first wagon was born in Paris 5 years ago, and then they opened in various cities in France and Europe, including London and Berlin. Today, there are nearly 30 wagons around the world (Rio, Mexico City, Tokyo, Copenhagen, etc.), but none in Switzerland until now! I did Le Wagon myself last summer and loved it. I tried it out to see if I could really be a developer after the course, and I held a junior web developer position in a start-up in Paris for almost a year. Convinced by this experience, I decided to take part in the expansion of Le Wagon, and today I'm starting up in Lausanne.
Alp ICT: Why Lausanne and what events do you offer?
Thibault: There are a lot of students in Lausanne, and it's a very techy city, with an ideal living environment. We're just starting out and I'm gradually meeting contacts in the tech ecosystem, such as schools, universities, coworking spaces, incubators. Our goal in Lausanne is to launch our first training session on January 7, 2019. In order to introduce people to Le Wagon, we offer free 2-hour tech workshops, such as "La landing page en 2h" where participants learn how to code their first web page. We present the theory and quickly move on to practice: our aim being to learn by doing.
Alp ICT: What are the results?
Thibault: The strength of Le Wagon is the whole community of Alumni (people who have made Le Wagon), and I'm the prime example. It was thanks to the Wagon network that I found the dev job in Paris. Even here in Lausanne, I find a lot of Swiss alumni who help me in my search.
To quote a few figures, to date Le Wagon represents :
- 3200+ Alumni
- 30 cities / 20 countries
- 500+ Apps created
- 3M€+ raised by SUs created after Le Wagon
You can find all the alumni success stories on the Wagon website.
Alp ICT: How does Le Wagon differ from other coding courses?
Thibault: Quite obviously, the short duration. What's more, the formula is a reallearning springboard: you learn by DOING, because we think that's how you learn best. The Wagon has very few theory classes (1h30 every morning), the rest being exercises and projects. In fact, all the applications created during the course are presented to an audience at the end of the 9 weeks. Finally, among the internet rankings of the best coding bootcamps(SwitchUp and Course Report), Le Wagon has been number 1 from the start.
To get started
Please see the specific page for Le Wagon Lausanne.
Join the Meetup group to stay informed about upcoming events. Upcoming workshops will take place :
- "Code your landing page" Wednesday, October 3 at 5:30 p.m. in EPFL's Innovation Park
- "Learn to code a web page in 2 hours" Thursday October 18 at 6pm at the Impact Hub in Lausanne.
