IT education is becoming a driver of economic growth. How do you see the position of bootcamps in this market?
The tech sector is playing a dominant role in many economies around the world, and an increasing number of industries are leading the way with companies with a strong technology focus. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are already well into this transformation process, so it is critical that IT education can evolve with market needs. Not to mention that Western Europe, for example, is increasingly relying on professionals trained here. Trends show a need for a significant increase in training output, flexible and rapid curriculum development, and deeper involvement of enterprises in education. The bootcamp model offers an optimal solution for all these challenges. For this reason, I expect an increase in the importance and market of bootcamps, accompanied by the emergence of proven high-quality, efficient and agile companies.
How can Green Fox Academy strengthen its position?
We are constantly expanding and developing our training portfolio along niche specialisms that the market has a huge demand for, but have not yet been backed by adequate training. At the same time, we are working to make the benefits of bootcamp training and its objectives widely known to companies and students. Training and education that is responsive to trends have been part of Green Fox’s mission since our launch in 2015.
As a result of this conscious building, the number of people interested in our career change and reskilling and upskilling training courses in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia is steadily increasing. Green Fox has the most experience in corporate services in the CEE region, where we make our tailor-made corporate bootcamp training widely available, currently working with partners such as Audi.
Where is Green Fox heading in expanding and developing its training portfolio?
Last year, we launched our Data engineer specialisation and our Salesforce and ServiceNow platform-specific courses, in response to the fact that the labour market has almost no resources in these areas. With new cohorts starting every quarter, we can already see how our graduates are performing and how demand from companies is evolving. These courses have paid off, and now we aim to scale them up.
We are also looking ahead, of course, and are working intensively on developing our training in several areas, as programming and, more broadly, the role and responsibilities of the IT workforce are facing exciting challenges. To say the least, the evolution of artificial intelligence models is expected to transform software development. I am concerned about what skills and knowledge combinations this should entail.
In seven years, Green Fox has trained more than 4,300 students. How does this experience feed into your work?
Feedback is constant, but we want to innovate in this area in several directions. First of all, our international team of mentors started refining training methodology and processes led by CTO Péter Szél. Thanks to the high number of students and the different types of training we offer, we have a wealth of data from several locations across Europe. I also see potential in deep qualitative and quantitative analysis of these data and in improving the experience of our students. But we are also planning to further strengthen the alumni network, for example, based on our current programme, and to introduce the model known from Anglo-Saxon education in Central Europe. This is seen as a valuable resource to build a professional and personal network that could even decide the choice of training places.
How do you feel about taking over operational management?
It has been a formative period for me as CEO of Green Fox because we have grown in leaps and bounds over the past three years. In two months, we introduced online training seamlessly, and 80 percent of our students have since opted for this form of training. We have made a breakthrough at a regional level, becoming market leaders in the Czech Republic and Slovakia by 2022. We tripled our turnover in two years and entered into a partnership with Sandberg Capital, which provides a solid platform to extend our international position.
Innovation and dynamism are the key to Green Fox’s success therefore strengthening product development is a strategic move. It’s the most exciting field for me, it works both sides of the brain along with being data-driven and intuitive at the same time. As Head of Product Development, I will put more energy into it than ever. I will continue to hold these two positions in parallel until the second half of the year when the CEO role will be transferred to a full-fledged manager to complete the process of becoming a regional mid-market company.