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WoTech
for women in Estonia & Latvia

12 months (300+ hours of expected participation)

WoTech is a reskilling program, run by Riga TechGirls and Smartworkacademy, which prepares women for a junior positions in the programming field.

During this 12 months program, 100 women in Estonia and 100 women in Latvia will:

  • get access to free training in programming

  • develop a network among the local community of learners and recruiters

  • develop soft-skills that support career change

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Program is run by:

Short Description:

Program duration: estimated to start in March 2024 and last until March 2025

Price: FREE

Application period: closed

Language: English

Application criteria: no previous IT-related job or learning experience required, just a motivation to pivot a career to IT + readiness to work hard & study independently.

Course structure: contact courses online (about 200h) related to programming, webinars to increase soft skills, and mandatory internship at the end of the course.

What to expect as a learner?

During the program learners will go through a thorough training giving fundamental tools to start working as junior programmers. Preliminary topics, that will be covered (may change): Java, SQL, DevOps, AI.

The programming related course will require about 180-220 learning hours. Learners will be expected to take part of online contact meetings (held in the evenings and weekends), practice independently and work in groups. 

The topic covered by the IT Course:

 

Java module 
- Introduction to Java and setting up integrated development environment (IDE)  - Basic Syntax and the first program  
- Variables and the principle of clean code (naming conventions etc.)  - Statements and loops  
- Functions and methods  
- Arrays and simple collections  
- Exception Handling  
- Lambda Expressions  
- Object oriented programming (OOP)  
- Using and building Application Programming Interface (API)  
- SQL, noSQL and Object relational mapping (ORM)  
- Unit testing  

 

Python module  

- Setting up virtual environment and writing the first code  

- Variables, data types, input and output  

- Operators and logical operations  

- Basic data structures  

- Loops  

- Functions and methods  

- Basic Object Oriented Programming (OOP) with Python  

- Using AI to develop a code  

- Data analytics libraries (pandas, numpy)  

- Data reading and saving to a file  

- Data cleaning and wrangling (working with Titanic dataset)  

- Data plotting (plotly, matplotlib, seaborn) (working with Netflix movie dataset)  - Introduction to data science (scikitlearn framework)  

- Basic machine learning with Python  

- Developing simple ML/AI models with Python  

- Interacting with AI models through API with Python  

DevOps module  

- Understanding the hosting and deployment process  

- Version control system “git” and its cloud hosting in GitHub  

- Deployment platforms and main principles of deployment  

- Learning how to host and deploy in a selected cloud platform  - Hosting databases  

- Deploying own projects from source control to a hosting 

To finish the program successfully and most importantly - get a job in the ICT field -  learners must go for an internship of at least 2 months. Internship is mandatory to successfully finish the program and get the certificate. Participants must find the suitable internship themselves - though there will be support from the program side in finding the  job and internship openings.

 

It is possible to substitute internship with directly starting a new job in your chosen or similar field., or to continue studying programming in a course that lasts also minimum 2 months. Internship (or work or study) positions must be secured by the end of the program, but can be carried out after the program. 

There will be additional webinars organised to increase learners soft skills and career possibilities. Those meetings are held online and start when the programming course is almost done. The topics covered in the webinars will boost skills that are important to analyse oneself regards future career choices, prepare a CV and motivation letter, develop team-working and digital communication skills, and stand out when applying to jobs.

The instructors of webinars may give learners additional independent tasks/exercises to be completed before or after the webinars to deepen the learning curve.

During the whole program learners get to meet inspirational speakers from different IT companies and to learn more about different job possibilities in the field of ICT.

The learners will find themselves in an warm and friendly learning environmentLearners are organised into smaller learning groups of 5-6 learners, allowing to get to know each other better. The program managers are at disposal to support learners in every way they can.

Criteria for candidates

The program accepts applications from candidates, who have:

- strong desire and motivation to start a career in ICT

- ability to dedicate approximately 8-12 hours per week for studies

- basic IT skills (to search for information in web, use ready made applications, etc)

- a level of English that enables studying in English

- a previous specialization in some other field or at least 3 years of working experience after high-school

How to apply?

The first step in the application process is going to the online form in Google Forms  and providing us with the following information:

- your contact details

- link to your LinkedIn profile (if you do not have it, then now it is the time to do it ;))

- a motivation letter, where you explain your motivation and thrive to start working in the IT field, as well as your capabilities & resources for fulfilling the course criteria

- share answers to a practical questions (you will learn more about from the form)

Note, the application process involves additional steps after sending your application: 

- Based on the application we will select suitable candidates and ask them to take part of two info sessions (online).
- First webinar takes place on 01.02.2024. from 17-19:00 EET (please book this time in your calendar beforehand). In this session you`ll here more about the course outline, important milestones, schedule, etc.
-  Second webinar will take place on 15.02.2024. from 17-19:00 EET (please book this time in your calendar beforehand).
- Final selection will be made based on the application and active participation of webinars and homework assignments.

Be the first to hear when the application form opens:

Criteria for passing the program

To pass the program, the leaner must:

- finish the programming course (about 180-220 learning hours)

- attend 90% of the webinars related to soft-skills

- go for an internship/start additional IT related studies or start working in the IT field

Learners, who meet the criteria above will get a certificate stating that they have passed the program.

The team

The program is run by an experienced team from Smartworkacademy (Estonia) and Riga TechGirls (Latvia)

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More information

We are at your disposal for further information:

  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook

The IT training is provided by:

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The trainers:

Elchin Jafarov has more than 15 years of experience in training of adult and young students  in the subjects of digital skills, programming, databases, data analytics and business  intelligence. He has trained many adult groups with around 70% of women in business  intelligence and coding. 

Oskars Kārlis Klaumanis is a professional developer specializing in enterprise grade  development with Java, C#. NET and related technologies, with valuable experience in  teaching. Oskars have mentored women only groups in coding and is teaching mixed group  of students in coding. 

Roberta Murniece is a professional data analytics, machine learning and AI specialist with  valuable experience in the industry and training. Roberta have been teaching mostly women  groups in business intelligence and data analytics in Datorium. 

Program is supported by:

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Program funding scheme and outline:

WoTech has received 213 144 Euros from Interreg Central Baltic, which covers 80% of the project related costs. The rest of the 20% is financed using own financing and support from sponsors e.g. Accenture, who suppprorts with 20 000 and KÜSK, who supports with 10 000 trhough the "International projects support" scheme.

The project duration is 18 months (starting from 01.11.2023), and its divided into three work-packages, each consisting of six months: 

1) candidate selection

2) IT training 

3) Placement support

The main goal  of the WoTech program is to have 150 graduates with increased competitiveness (e.g. IT skills) on the labor market by 30.04.2025.

The steering committee (who helps to ensure the quality of the project implementation) consist of two experts: Karl Andreas Sprenk, Digital Skills Coordinaton Director at the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Estonia) and Zanda Arnava, Talent Studio Lead at Accenture (Latvia).
 

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