Introducing Kickstart Academy
Getting started in the modern world, whether via the start-up hustle or the corporate grind, requires capabilities that enable one to add value and earn one’s keep. To that end, Kickstart Academy is here to help.
Kickstart Academy is all about supporting learners in getting their start (or re-start) through courses on:
- writing code
- working with and interpreting data (visualisation, “analytics”, “data science” and machine learning)
- building software
- managing modern IT systems
- navigating the increasingly digital world of business
For is, this means going beyond knowledge, and into developing & demonstrating enough skills to add value to a team, or to convince a hirer that one can actually perform.
Kickstart Academy is Different
To those who feel that most public training companies, which claim to be schools, are not entirely interested in helping learners build actual capabilities and instead are all about up-selling and grabbing government grants, you are not entirely wrong to be worried.
It is sad but true that most “schools” barely provide enough instruction and guided practice to make a difference in how a learner’s capabilities are perceived by prospective team mates and hirers. A mission of Kickstart Academy is to address this market failure in our domain of expertise.
Unlike the deceptive marketing practices of others, we do not claim that you will “Master X in N Hours” (where X is a highly demanded skill and N is usually between 10 to 20). Or be working with advanced topics after 5 hours of exposure. Instead, our claims of what you could achieve will be well-grounded in the realities of the labour market.
At Kickstart Academy, we are educators with notable experience in industry, “start-ups”, adult education (most of us have earned ACTA or DACE certifications) and university education (some are currently instructors at universities like NUS), our objective is to build capability. We will take learners far enough that their gains will be useful in industry or on the job market. In a manner of speaking, we call this “scratching the surface deeply”.
What We Do at Kickstart Academy
Kickstart Academy adopts a semi-vocational approach dominated by hands-on guided practice. We believe that exposure to knowledge alone is not enough to make one competitive — knowledge must be accompanied by demonstrated capability. (We will provide hooks to the underlying intellectual foundations which the interested/intrigued can pursue as desired.)
Kickstart Academy is committed to “continuing education”. After completing courses/programs with us, stick around to attend complementary workshops on industry-relevant content that the courses serve as foundations for, or review materials on past workshops. Because our mission is capability development, unless there is demand for face-to-face training, we are not bundling those bits into paid courses.
Presently, we are getting things set up and building our materials and our organisation. We hope to work with you soon.
Feel free to write us an e-mail. Do tell us if you want to receive more information.
