GoKawiilApple today marked the fifth graduating class from its Detroit Developer Academy with a new feature highlighting local app makers who have used the program over the years to build apps, businesses, and community projects. Here are the details.
Apple highlights Detroit Academy achievements and impact
In a Newsroom story shared today, Apple highlighted four Apple Developer Academy graduates and the projects they worked on during and after the program.
The Apple Developer Academy is a free training program focused on app development, design, business, and professional skills. It is currently available in six countries, with the Detroit Academy being the only one in the United States to date.
The Detroit Apple Developer Academy was created in 2021 as part of Apple’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, a program the company says focuses “on three priority areas: education, economic empowerment, and criminal justice reform.”
From Apple’s Newsroom post:
This year marks the Apple Developer Academy’s fifth commencement in Detroit, completed in collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU) and the Gilbert Family Foundation. Since launching in the heart of the Motor City in 2021, the academy has welcomed more than 1,800 students across its free programs, including the full nine-month experience and the Apple Foundation Program, an intensive four-week app development course. This year, the academy’s fifth cohort of learners includes 200 Detroiters who have been equipped with app development and business skills to set them up for careers in the evolving app economy and other technology-focused roles.
Recently, the effectiveness of the Detroit Apple Developer Academy was put into question after Wired published a story examining the program’s funding, cost per student, and job placement outcomes.
According to Wired, “about 71 percent of graduates from the last two years went onto full-time jobs across a variety of industries,” which was on the lower end of what would be considered a successful employment rate for coding schools.
Apple at the time pushed back against the idea that job placement figures alone reflected the academy’s value, by saying graduates also use the coding, design, project management, and marketing skills learned at the academy across a wider range of careers.
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