As we kick off our outreach for the upcoming Fall 2021 session of Drupal Career Online, (our 10th year!) we can’t help but marvel, with a bit of pride, as we reflect on how cool it is that our small company has such a big-impact program for people who want to become part of our ever-impressive open source community. We’ve served stellar students, continue to have fantastic collaborations, and through it all, our Drupal Career Online program has grown, gotten better and attracted new Drupal talent to the community every one of the 10 years we’ve been presenting it. But this year, things look even brighter thanks to the insight of some Drupal Community shining stars!

We’ve always relied on our mission to provide a clear path forward for students, ensure we teach only best practices to give anyone who enrolls in Drupal Career Online a solid foundation for their career and to serve the Drupal Community. We’ve refined our application, extended the course, continuously update our curriculum and materials and built an active DrupalEasy learning community. We even earned and continually maintain an annual license as an Institution of Higher Education from the Florida Department of Education, Commission for Independent Education. 

But now, we are about to get exponentially better, and hopefully help make the Drupal Community better as well! This year–as a fitting crescendo to our 10 Year Anniversary–we are super excited and honored to have more than half of our seats for the Fall 2021 Session of Drupal Career Online reserved, and tuition underwritten, by insightful organizations in our community who are stepping up to diversify Drupal. The stars of this effort, Palantir.net, Bounteous and the Drupal Association through Discover Drupal, have partnered with us to help bring in, train up, and employ individuals to help bring about a more diverse, equitable and inclusive Drupal community.  

We are so proud to be working with amazing individuals and organizations on three insightful efforts that, by promoting diversity, will make the community better and enable more innovation and growth. The last time we were this excited about how our program could serve the Drupal Community was 10 years ago when it launched, and this is even more awesome in that it is all Drupal Community members who are making it happen.  We are star-struck; major support for new talent development guided by Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Yay!

Palantir.net is making available Palantir Fellowships that include tuition and stipends for two qualifying individuals during each session of Drupal Career Online.  Palantir is also providing need-based stipends, mentors, and internship/entry level positions to successful candidates with backgrounds and perspectives frequently underrepresented in the technology industry.  The Palantir Fellowship is designed to offer the support and resources to help up to four individuals per year become successful professionals who add to the culture of their organization and the Drupal community.  Palantir created their program as an ongoing, sustainable effort to provide comprehensive Drupal career preparation, meaningful support and hands-on experience.   

Bounteous is making available a Drupal Career Online Scholarship to an individual who is part of one of several historically underrepresented groups in tech so that they may become part of the Drupal talent pipeline and their team. Bounteous will provide the mentor for the awardee, as well as an internship and potential position on the Bounteous staff.  The program is part of invigorated efforts at Bounteous to focus its recruiting efforts on those that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Finally, as part of the Drupal Association's Discover Drupal program, DrupalEasy is supporting their scholarship, training and work experience initiative as a training partner (along with Evolving Web, Drupalize.me and Mediacurrent) to bring nine aspiring Drupal developers with diverse backgrounds into the community.  We are excited to host three Discover Drupal participants who were recently selected in our upcoming session, and look forward to seeing more in the future. Discover Drupal is an ongoing, community supported effort that everyone can support through donation, mentoring, internships and employment of its graduates.  It’s a way anyone can be a part of helping to diversify Drupal through talent development! Be a Star! 

We view Drupal training and early work experience as the access people of all backgrounds need for a solid foundation and successful career in Drupal.  We are so proud to be a part of all of these initiatives that we hope mark the beginning of a sustainable, systemic approach to diversifying Drupal that will have astronomical results in supporting growth and development of much needed new talent into our community. 

Applications for the Palantir Fellowship and the Bounteous scholarship will open soon, and we will be providing detailed information and links to these programs on our Drupal Career Online information pages and application as well as at our three, no-cost Taste of Drupal information sessions in July and August.  Contact us if you have a question, and look for more information to follow!

The next session of Drupal Career Online starts August 30th. Join us for a Taste of Drupal to learn more.  Have questions or want to discuss these programs? Let us know!