Simplon.Co

Simplon.co is a network of 53 inclusive digital schools in France and abroad. We firmly believe that digital transformation is a powerful vehicle for social innovation and that it can enable those who struggle to access training and/or the job market, to become the talents of tomorrow, by finding a job or becoming an entrepreneur. Simplon.co provides free and intensive training bootcamps for jobseekers and other vulnerable populations (women, NEETS, refugees) to help them find a job in the tech sector. So far, we’ve trained 3224 people with a rate of 76% positive outcomes (https://simplon.co). Simplon.co is also a rich ecosystem of digital service production, events and activities where both regions and businesses experience digital transformation. As of end-2018, Simplon is present in 15 different countries including Spain, Belgium, Romania, and Switzerland.

All the Simplon vocational courses for digital jobs aimed at populations who are distanced from the labour market and under-represented in the digital industry. Simplon has always targeted NEETs in its 6-month professional-pathway courses: so far, 48% of our trainees are young people who are neither employed neither in training. Simplon.co also lead specific pre-qualifying training programme for NEETS. The CAPPRIO project (2015 – 2018). Simplon plans to rely on the first learnings and insights of the CAPPRIO project – a project during which 383 young NEETS were trained to the “Digital Techniques and Culture” over 6 weeks with a 76% positive outcome at the end of the period – to implement the Social Hackademy pilot and scale its pedagogy at the European level.

Simplon will share its expertise in active pedagogy to produce the project training courses aimed at developing a range of technical and soft skills of young people in WP2. To do so, Simplon will mobilize its training department to:

1. Introduce the Simplon active pedagogy to other partners: To integrate the largest number of excluded young adults in the digital industry sector, Simplon developed intensive training programmes with innovative teaching methods such as peer-to-peer learning, learning by teaching, mentoring, actions with companies. These methods can help trainees to keep strong and achieve the course. They can limit the drop out risk.

2. Elaborate a skills framework with the other organisations, based on its “Digital Technique and culture” skills framework and “Digital Adviser” skills framework: Simplon department will contribute to the description of the technical skills required, and include the soft skills development which is central in the Simplon pedagogy.

3. Crowdsource the “Open Social Hackademy” initiative with training contents posted on its collaborative e-learning platform Simplonline and other open educational resources available in French.

4. Share pedagogical good practices between trainers and experts of the consortium at each step of the project.

5. Develop sourcing partnership: our team will sensitize local associations and governments to the fact that anyone may become a tech expert if they are motivated enough. Simplon will organize discovery sessions with our partners, dealing flyers to the future candidates and answering their numerous questions. We will also create and strengthen links and partnerships with employment public actors but also specialized associations such as the Mission Locale, the Ecoles de la Seconde Chance, AFEV, and the EPIDE associations.

Website
simplon.co

Contact
Mr. Frédéric Bardeau
fred@simplon.co