Co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak is launching a new online tech education platform called Woz U. The online platform is designed to promote technology jobs, and provides the lessons and skills necessary to get a job in the industry. The program also provides partnerships with some Universities that have students who are interested in the program.
Overtime, Wozniak hopes to expand the program to include as many as 30 physical locations around the globe. There are courses from software engineering and information technology to mobile app development and cybersecurity, amongst many other options. Right now, it’s unclear if these courses will be free, offer at a low price, or a high price. The website just asks for your information and provides no information on pricing.
The Woz U platform will be available to students K-12 through partnerships with school districts, as well. The program also wants to offer one-on-one instructions to students, and later down the line also offer its own accelerator program for prospective startup founders.
The goal of this program is to increase future talent interest in what Woz U calls STEAM careers, or science, technology, arts, and mathematics. The addition of art is more than likely based on Wozniak’s role at Apple to build blended technology with humanities.
“Our goal is to educate and train people in employable digital skills without putting them into years of debt,” Wozniak said in a statement. “People often are afraid to choose a technology-based career because they think they can’t do it. I know they can, and I want to show them how. My entire life I have worked to build, develop, and create a better world through technology and I have always respected education. Now is the time for Woz U, and we are only getting started.”
While there is no pricing out for the program right now, you can check out the mobile app for some introductory courses. You can “enroll” in Woz U today by entering a bit of your personal information. The program seems like it’s well-put together and Woz U does note that their initial partner is the for-profit Southern Careers Institute, which is based out of Austin, Texas. It’s probably not a good idea to get your hopes up for the courses to be free. Once pricing for the programs go live, we will report it to as soon as possible.
