Prittle Prattle’s interview for Varun Kohli,Co-Founder of Coding Blocks ,Responses: Varun Kohli, Co-Founder, and CEO, Coding Blocks
1. What was your motivation for starting Coding Blocks?
Over the years, we have witnessed some remarkable changes in the education system, making learning more progressive and engaging. However, many loopholes and problems still need to be resolved.
Hailing from an engineering background, I realized that our current structure of computer education in colleges and universities is not aligned with the needs of the IT industry. Students have nowhere to go and bridge this huge gap. It was this realization that prompted me to address the issue of the student community and build Coding Blocks. Our motive was to build a learning center designed to teach programming and bridge the gap between the quality of skills demanded by industry and the quality of skills imparted by conventional institutes.
A place of learning where students can associate and prepare themselves before stepping out into the real industry. We started Coding Blocks with a vision of giving back to society. I wanted to see Indian developers do better than people globally because we have enormous talent. But our students are not guided well in colleges. That is why we built Coding Blocks.
2. How would you distinguish Coding Block from its competitors?
We have been in the field of edtech for longer than other institutions and quite focused on our vision to transform even ordinary students into industry-ready coders.
With Coding Blocks, we offer the following which is our differentiation point from others:
- Quality Content
- Live doubt sessions
- Experienced mentors who are passionate about teaching with real industry experience to help our students
- Self paced courses
Another thing that makes us different from other edtech companies is our motive that we aim to create a home for budding coders, more than an institution, a place where you will make your own identity as a programmer and we will be there at every step to support the students and willing to put everything that it takes to reach their goal.
3. Where did you acquire your initial funding for Coding Blocks?
Coding Blocks is our dream to make coding accessible and easy for everyone willing to learn.
We started Coding Blocks in 2014 with a mission to create skilled software engineers for our country and the world. From then to now, Coding Blocks has been bootstrapped till date.
4. What are your long-term plans for Coding Blocks?
The plan is to break all the stereotypes associated with programming. Notions that say coding is for the geniuses, you need to have supernatural intelligence to master programming. Coding Blocks stands against those beliefs, all you need is determination to become a programmer and with the proper learning path, anyone can be a programmer. Our plan is to make Coding Blocks the most loved destination for programming for everyone. We have started many programs and courses to help students reach their goal. One of our programs is Career Bootcamp where students can study with zero fees unless they get their ideal career. It is a 6-months long “Assured Placement” program for the students who are currently pursuing engineering and are in their third or final year and experienced professionals.
At Coding Blocks, we strive to make better and more skilled programmers and help them break all the shackles in their journey of degree to dreams.
5. How far have you progressed toward your Coding Blocks goal?
In our quest to impart computer education to aspiring developers and coders, we have come a long way. More than 300 thousand students are connected to Coding Blocks in one way or the other and we have played a significant role in their pursuit of vocations and ambitions.
We have been in the edtech sector for over 7 years and have achieved a few milestones.
We look forward to contributing more to the student community and tech field by playing a part in creating efficient coders with relevant skills required by the IT industry. More than 30 thousand students of Coding Blocks have been placed with the well known organizations.
Almost half of our recent batches got placed at Amazon. We believe that the most significant achievement for Coding Blocks is to have gained the confidence of so many students, and we are honoured to have alumni working at companies such as Adobe, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and others.
We have come a long way, and yet have a long way to go.
6. What would you say to inspire prospective coding students?
We have come so far and yet so behind, so much to create and contribute to this fast moving field of technology and you can be a part of something significant with your coding skills. Coding today is what art was to Picasso, it is the backbone of our technological advancement and development.
Whether you are a student completing your Class XII and just free from your Engineering entrance exams, or an Engineering degree student in a University or college, or a working professional planning to switch domain to Software/IT or probably enhance your Coding skills, we would love to welcome you to join Coding Blocks. Based on your knowledge and skill, we will carve out a learning path along with a complete guidance for you to become a great programmer.
7. Your thoughts on when technology, such as coding, is used to hack and mislead people.
I feel coding is a necessity of the modern world. We should start teaching coding to young minds and show them the right path from the beginning of how much good they can do with technology. Technology today is power and power can either create or destroy. However, with the right guidance, we can help our students become skilled developers and engineers. There is hacking and misleading but there is also ethical hacking and building applications that makes human life much easier. We just have to make sure to have more numbers on the later side and that can only happen with proper guidance from the beginning.
This article is drafted by Prittle Prattle News in the form of an Interview.
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