OpenLearning and Canva partnership addresses tech skill gap

Global visual communications platform Canva has partnered ASX listed OpenLearning on a program designed to provide computer science upskilling to breach the Australian tech skills gap.

Digital Nation spoke to Adam Brimo, CEO of OpenLearning to learn more about the CS101 program and understand how the company is increasing access to higher quality education.

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“CS101 stands for computer science 101, and the idea behind CS101, is that we really want to equip people with the foundational programming problem solving computational thinking skills that are necessary to succeed in the technology sector,” says Brimo.

According to Brimo, many of the tools that offer education in front end development and programming are surface level, and do not give users the information necessary to fully grasp necessary concepts.

CS101 instead starts users from the very beginning, Brimo says, filling the gaps that he sees many people in the industry have in their knowledge.

Brimo says that in the CS101 program, not only can you develop programming skills, but you can "learn how to learn" computer science.

He believes that the rapidly evolving nature of computer science means that providing users with the fundamental elements of computer science will allow them to confidently keep up with new technologies.

According to OpenLearning, Australia will need an extra 60,000 tech workers annually over the next five years while only 7,000 students graduated with a technology-related degree in 2019.

Brimo says CS101 is helping to meet this need.

“It's providing those foundations and Canva will be putting a number of their own team members through the program, so they can actually learn and give us feedback along the way as well,” Brimo says.

“Together, we'll ensure that this is one of the world's best computer science programs and is available to lots of people around the world if they want tend to the technology sector, or start their journey towards becoming a computer scientist.”