Coding bootcamp coming to Kauai

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Like the rest of the state, the small island of Kauai depends on tourism for its economic survival.

The Kauai County government implemented the state’s most aggressive COVID-19 rules, and saw some of the lowest infection and death rates in the country. But closing its doors to tourists devastated the Kauai economy. And a resurgence late last year dealt a double blow to island businesses, and their workers.

Even with a slow recovery predicted, job opportunities on Kauai will always be limited, and primarily cater to tourists.

Rich Uhl hopes to change that.

Growing up with tech

“Even as a kid I knew what I wanted to do, and that’s technology,” he recalls. “From playing on an Apple IIe to building my first network and selling my first software program at age 14, it was my jam, my happy place.”

The recent Kauai transplant has worked in IT, information systems design and consulting for more than two decades, starting with setting businesses up with dial-up internet service through working with some of the world’s largest tech companies.

When cloud computing first hit the scene, Uhl realized immediately that it would disrupt the data center business, where he’d been spending much of his time.

“I knew that cloud computing was going to be the future, and my new job,” he says.

An island epiphany

Uhl has experience living on an island, having spent the last seven years on Bainbridge Island in Washington State.

“It was good prep for me coming to Kauai,” he says. “They also have island time, it’s slow there, though not as slow as here, but I need more of that in my life.”

The story of how Uhl came to choose Kauai as his family’s next home is not uncommon.

“I came in June 2019 for the first vacation of my entire career,” he says.

“I’ve always said that if your business can’t survive without you, it’s not a business, it’s a club — you have to be able to step away, to take a vacation,” Uhl explains. “We hired good people to run things and I finally slowed down enough to get away.”

Uhl says he completely unplugged for ten days. After he returned to work, a health scare gave him a new perspective.

“You go through a review of your life,” Uhl says. “Kauai is a place of healing, mentally, physically, spiritually, and I didn’t want to go another year without making a move.”

He bought a home on Kauai in the middle of the pandemic, sight unseen. He brought his family — four of his five kids, ranging in age from seven to 23 — and his remote cloud computing consulting job to Hawaii.

“When I would commute to Seattle by ferry, I used to leave home at 4:50 a.m. to be at my desk by 6 a.m.,” Uhl says. “Working from out here, it finally feels like the rest of the world is on my schedule.”

Fostering community

Rich Uhl and his family, including his wife Amy. "She is why I'm able to do any of these things," he says. "She is my advisor and coach."

Rather than holing up in his new tropical sanctuary, Uhl immediately focused on connecting with locals.

“I love being involved in community stuff,” he says. “I’ve lived in three states, and I really have learned that I’m happier when I put down roots no matter how long I’m staying.”

And Uhl is well aware that relocating to Hawaii can be complicated.

“I grew up in a small town in Utah — we had no diversity, and it was eye opening to move to Seattle and one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself and my children,” he recalls. “I know there’s an uphill challenge in being an outsider in a strong and really incredible culture, so I hope that actions are what is heard versus what I say.”

He also sees strength in differences.

“In my business I surround myself with people who don’t look like me, because they would see things I couldn’t see,” Uhl says.

Enrolling his kids in a local charter school allowed both them and him to meet new people (including his first Dev-Island business partner). Given his business background, Uhl offered his expertise to the Kauai Economic Development Board. And he started scanning LinkedIn for other tech people on Kauai, and has already built up a Kauai Tech Meetup group that gets together virtually every other Friday.

“We Just got started, and we hope to be able to meet in person soon,” he says. “There are maybe 15 people in the Meetup group, and nearly 30 in a Slack group we’ve set up.”

Experiencing the pandemic on the Garden Island also inspired him to launch the Dev-Island project.

“Things on Kauai were finally starting to open up, and then got shut down again, and I got to see the devastation it brought to people and families,” he recalls. “People needed more opportunities, and I decided I wanted to open a coding bootcamp on the island.”

Launching Dev-Island

Uhl has a plan, established a 501c3 nonprofit, and found his first instructor. He is bullish on coding bootcamps because he has first-hand experience working with graduates of a program in Seattle.

“Four of our hires came out of the Seattle bootcamp, and all of them were entirely re-schooled,” Uhl recalls. “We had a concert harpist, an operations worker, a naturopathic doctor, and nonprofit director.”

“These programs are incredible, and their graduates were some of the best people I ever hired,” he continues. “In nine months to a year, they come into the workforce, and their individual income is higher than the average median household income with multiple earners.”

Uhl says that there aren’t a lot of software development training programs at the community college level, but that coding bootcamps are a local educational opportunity that can lead to a wide variety of remote work.

Dev-Island will likely focus on JavaScript, but include some full-stack work, he says.

“We’re looking at multiple curricula, like FreeCodeCamp, and the school I hired from in Seattle also makes their material available,” Uhl says. “People from Amazon Web Services have reached out to help, and there will probably be more partnerships like that.”

He says he’s been meeting with Hawaii businesses who are offering to donate computer equipment or even hire graduates.

As for the ideal student?

“We want a variety of people,” he says. “Fresh out of high school, a parent or mother coming back into the workforce, someone in the travel industry that lost employment, someone in another industry and wants to do something different.”

Uhl envisions half a dozen students from different backgrounds in the first Dev-Island cohort, who will be trained, then hopefully placed in remote worker or local jobs. In the mean time, he hopes to capture their stories, and enlist them as mentors for subsequent cohorts.

Before opening up applications, however, Uhl is still doing his homework.

“I’m in the process of the most important part, and that’s gathering feedback from people familiar with the island, the culture, and the people,” he says. “And I really want to focus on results, starting small, to prove that we can do this.”

And if he can’t?

“If everyone says this is a bad idea or won’t be successful, I’ll need to pivot and adjust,” he says. “If I’m unable to get the support needed, this could fail, and that would be okay — at least it was something that was tried.

“I don’t feel it will be wasted effort, because I will learn many important valuable lessons and grow,” he says.

Next steps

While he and his partner finalize the curriculum, Uhl is setting up an application process, and continuing to meet with potential partners and collaborators on Kauai.

Whether you’d like to contribute to the Dev-Island project, enroll yourself or a friend, or just tell Uhl what you think about his plan, connect with him on LinkedIn or send him an email at rich@dev-island.org. Within days, a new website will be launched at dev-island.org.

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Images courtesy Shutterstock.