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Action shot, click… Two friends, OpenHub founder and Tech Academy director, Yulia Ovchinnikova (right), and OpenHub Website Development Mentor, Shannah White (left), smile with warm hearts as the year-long Tech Academy workforce development project draws to a close. Helping people achieve a positive transformation that opens doors of opportunity for them, is one of life’s most rewarding joys.

OpenHub’s Tech Academy project was a partnership with the Orange County Department of Labor and the Newburgh Free Library to serve unemployed and underemployed adults in Newburgh and the Hudson Valley at large, assisting with upskilling and reskilling in technology. The Tech Academy offered courses in digital literacy, website development, data analytics, networks and systems, and digital business management.

Through the nearly 40 Tech Academy courses, bootcamps, and free community events and workshops, over 150 students were able to gain valuable tech skills and discover industry career paths they actually enjoy, as well as connect, network, and find community in their chosen path of growth.

OpenHub was founded to empower people to improve their lives by improving their technology skills. But it’s not just that. OpenHub cultivates supportive community and helps students develop their soft skills and find their authentic voice by conducting every program with an ambiance of wholesome values like:

• Let’s be playful and experiment
• Discovering your innate talents and natural sense of creativity, drive, and purpose is just as important as developing your tech skills
• Progress over perfection
• We love you even when you make mistakes
• You can create the life you want
• Let your authentic self shine

In the words of Julie Sylvia, graduating student of Tech Academy’s Website Development Bootcamp and WordPress Course:

Before joining the Tech Academy Web Dev Bootcamp I had zero hard skills. After seven years as a stay-at-home mom, I wanted to get back into the workforce. All of my prior experience had been in the service industry, and I had no desire to return to that line of work.

I had some interest in web development, and had done some basic coding tutorials online in the past, but felt like it just wasn't clicking for me.

After googling in-person web development bootcamps, I was shocked to find that OpenHub was the only one in the Hudson Valley that offered them.

After the first class, it was daunting to realize that I knew so little. With our instructor Shannah's help, in each class I came to understand more. She broke everything down into easily digestible steps. Whenever anyone had a problem, she was there to help it click.

Throughout the course I learned that I will never know all there is to know about web development. Instead of that being a scary thing, it came to mean that there was always a higher place I could take myself. In that I found empowerment. These courses have given me confidence in myself and my abilities, not just as a web developer, but in all aspects of my life.

I can do hard things, and it takes time to learn something new. With the skills I have now, I'm having fun building websites.

I now have the ability to be financially independent and control my own working hours.

I can't thank OpenHub enough for providing exceptional invaluable instruction, bonus tech talks, and I am so grateful for taking the leap and doing the work to learn.