Coding Dojo Workshops Aim to Bring More Developers to Amazon Alexa

Building on existing 13,000 Alexa skills; 30 Alexa developer workshops planned across Coding Dojo campuses in 2017


BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwired - Jun 27, 2017) - Coding Dojo, a pioneer in the coding bootcamp space, today announced it will host at least 30 Amazon Alexa skills workshops by the end of 2017 based on curriculum created in collaboration with Amazon. During the workshops, Coding Dojo plans to train at least 1500 developers to create thousands of new Alexa skills, significantly expanding the current collection of 13,000 skills that enable people to intuitively interact with Amazon Echo and other devices with Alexa using voice.

"Every day we see developers creating unique voice-first customer experiences on Alexa," said Rob Pulciani, Director, Amazon Alexa. "The program with Coding Dojo will enable even more developers to see how easy it is to get started building for voice. We can't wait to see what they create."

The workshops will be spread across Coding Dojo's campuses in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Silicon Valley and Washington D.C. Coding Dojo instructors will teach workshop attendees how to build an Alexa skill and get it certified for publication in the Alexa skills store. They will specifically gain experience with three services: Amazon's Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), AWS Lambda (part of Amazon Web Services), and the Node.js backend JavaScript framework. Each workshop will last four hours.

"Alexa is a powerful service for consumers, and skills are the way it continues to add even more capabilities," said Coding Dojo CEO Michael Choi. "It's impressive how many skills have already been created, and we're honored to work with Amazon to help developers make Alexa as useful as possible."

Alexa is the voice service that powers Amazon Echo and other devices. These skills enable customers to control smart home devices with a simple ask of "turn on the lights", get access to information when their hands are busy in the kitchen, listen to the news in the morning as they get ready for work, and much more, all with simple voice commands.

Coding Dojo has Alexa-related curriculum and has previously hosted numerous Alexa workshops. Amazon and Coding Dojo also collaborated to produce a series of Alexa developer how-to videos late last year.

To sign up for a Coding Dojo Alexa workshop, go to codingdojo.com/alexa-skills-workshop and to see more about what Amazon has to say about the workshops go here.

About Coding Dojo
Coding Dojo, a premier coding school, believes anyone can learn to code with the right resources and motivation. Through more than ten years of curriculum refinement, it is the only coding bootcamp to teach three full technology stacks in a single 14-week program. Since 2012, thousands of Coding Dojo students from a variety of backgrounds and skill levels have been transformed into professional developers who go on to be hired by startups and world-class companies like Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, JPMorgan Chase and Uber. Coding Dojo has campuses in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Tulsa and Washington D.C. It is one of the fastest growing startups with recognition in rankings like the GeekWire 200. Go to codingdojo.com to learn more.