The announcement was made Wednesday that University of Southern Mississippi's School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering and Mississippi Coding Academies are working with Biloxi to bring the new facility to South Mississippi. Future locations are also planned on the Coast.
Applications for the new Biloxi Cyber Center, scheduled to launch in early August, are already being accepted at www.mscoding.org.
According to its Facebook page, Mississippi Coding Academies has tuition-free, 11-month courses "that transform recent high school graduates into full-stack coders and web developers."
The Biloxi campus will follow the same 11-month, full-time schedule that other MCA campuses along with some virtual instruction on the internet.
"The program is tuition-free for the coders, and recent high-school graduates are welcome, as are those who have had some college — or even mid-career professionals," the website says.
Biloxi Mayor Andrew "FoFo" Gilich has worked to bring high-tech computer jobs to the city since he was elected. The Biloxi site will provide software development and cyber security training for adults to prepare them for entry-level cyber security industry certification.
"This is a great opportunity for adults re-entering the workforce, veterans, or recent high school graduates to upskill for jobs in software development and cybersecurity," said Dr. Sarah Lee, Director of the School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering at USM.
Senior instructor at Biloxi is Andrew Stamps, a former IBM employee with five years as a coding instructor for the Mississippi Coding Academies, and Patrick Mame, will serve in a junior instructor role.
USM will provide instruction for the cybersecurity modules that will prepare participants for the CompTIA Security + certification exam.
©2021 The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
