The Academy is a Catalyst initiative designed to provide training and work experience for young New Zealand technologists.
We run the two week Open Source Academy in January each year and a three day Arduino Academy in the July school holidays
Aimed at senior secondary school students, our Open Source Academy is a two week programme to learn about, and work with, Open Source technologies. We help get Academy students to the point where they can contribute to an open source project during the Academy with the skills to continue on.
Our Open Source Academies give secondary school students a taste of real open source development through a combination of classroom sessions and hands on project work. By organising and funding the Academy, Catalyst aims to show young technologists how to participate in open source communities and to fully explore their passion for IT through freely available open source tools.
To meet the growing demand for open source technology across the public and private sectors, both in New Zealand and internationally, our Academy aims at attracting the IT talent that is needed.
The Open Source Academy has been running annually in January since 2011. Since then, three of our students have been given full time permanent jobs here at Catalyst, with a number more in paid part time or holiday work as they finish school or University.
2023 Applications Open!
Registrations for next two-week Open Source Academy in January 2023 are now open. Interested Year 12 & 13 students can head to the Open Source Academy's Moodle site (https://ako.floss.ac.nz) to complete the application form.