The first Fit4Coding/WebForce3 graduation ceremony took place on 31 May 2016 at the Esch-sur-Alzette Technoport in the presence of the Hereditary Grand Duke, the Minister of Labour, Employment and the Social and Solidarity Economy, Nicolas Schmit, the director of ADEM, Isabelle Schlesser, and numerous representatives of the programme’s partner companies. This first graduating class recorded a 100% success rate.
Officially inaugurated on 14 January 2016 after having opened its doors in November 2015, on 31 May 2016 the WebForce3 school presented diplomas to the first training session, 16 learners including 13 former job seekers who followed an intensive coding course comprising 490 hours of classes over a period of three months.
In her opening speech, Isabelle Schlesser, director of the Agence pour le Développement de l’Emploi (ADEM) [National Employment Administration] recalled that the Fit4Coding/WebForce3 training course ‘fits in very well with the Government’s strategy and is consistent with the Digital Lëtzebuerg global initiative since it involves training the talents which the digital economy needs’.
‘This training also responds well to the new strategy which the Ministry of Labour has set up with ADEM, that of offering highly targeted training courses to job seekers’, she stressed. The training has already borne fruit since two months after the end of the degree course, many students have already found a job.
The programme’s strength resides precisely in the fact that large companies based in Luxembourg, like Vanksen, Kneip and PWC, have signed partnership agreements with the programme with the aim of recruiting the students directly.
The Minister of Labour, Employment and the Social and Solidarity Economy, Nicolas Schmit, was pleased with a ‘gamble that has paid off’. Convinced that the project will ‘open up new avenues in training and education’, the minister emphasised an ‘innovative initiative that’s unique in Luxembourg (…), a flagship project for ADEM’.
The WebForce3 school represents a specific action of the Digital Lëtzebuerg initiative, which aims to consolidate the country’s positioning in the field of ICT and transform Luxembourg into a ‘high tech’ centre of excellence. Its objective is to train a hundred ‘coders’ in the short term, technicians and junior developers and integrators – who will be operational as soon as they leave the school.
The first training session took place from 30 November 2015 to 26 March 2016. The second group, which comprises 18 people exclusively from ADEM, started at the beginning of April and should finish at the end of July.
