The Global Philanthropy team at Snap Inc., the makers of Snapchat, sought to use its leadership and expertise — in ephemeral communication, social media, and pioneering feature development of filters, Lenses, and augmented reality effects — to nurture the potential of emerging and underrepresented talent into tech. Additionally, Snap sought to provide global team members meaningful ways to support the mission through active skills-based learning within an employer context. 

At Next Shift Learning (NSL), we share Snap’s commitment to upskilling nontraditional talent to create a more equitable tech industry. We are proud to have partnered with Snap to develop four academies to provide domain education, work-based learning, and professional development opportunities in UX/UI design, software engineering, marketing/communications/branding, and augmented reality. 

These Snap Academies target often overlooked sources of tech talent: community college students, recent transfers, and Opportunity Youth (current or formerly unhoused, foster or incarcerated talent). We use our expertise in curriculum development, learning design and program operations — and Snap's expertise in cutting-edge technology — to equip emerging talent with the skills needed to land internships, part-time work, or high-paying jobs in the industry.

To date, our academies have graduated over 250 Snap Scholars and engaged thousands of Snap team members as volunteers and mentors. We are proud to work alongside the Snap Global Philanthropy team to build a more inclusive and equitable future.

The Snap Global Philanthropy team had a vision to provide an academy-style summer educational training for diverse talent hosted at their campus. Through LA-based volunteer experiences in local schools and community colleges, the team noticed a growing need to provide deeper industry-driven learning experiences to demystify career pathways into tech.

They wanted to equip these scholars with the technical, professional, and social-emotional behavioral skills necessary to navigate uncharted pathways into the tech industry. Snap partnered with NSL in 2018 to design a curriculum that distilled domain knowledge, skills, and tasks, and the ways of working at Snap, into applicable work-based experience. Between 2018 and 2021, NSL worked with junior, mid-career, senior, and C-suite level teammates at Snap Inc. to co-design four domain-specific curricula. Each learning experience provides roughly 80 hours of instructor-led content that prepares each cohort for a two-week, cross-functional final project sprint. Snap team members support the Scholars through hands-on learning over the course of nine-weeks through real-world project experiences, professional development workshops, guest speakers, product presentations, mentorship, and a special ERG Kaleidoscope series.

In 2020, Covid-19 made it essential to care for and help Scholars grow holistically. NSL designed and introduced a new professional development curriculum, customized to the Snap Academies context, to guide Scholars’ long-term career growth with social-emotional skills and behaviors. Over the last two years, NSL supported the increased visibility of the Academies as it stepped into managing the full scope of the program. The NSL team developed a digital campaign in partnership with Snap Marketing to expand its reach and attract new applicants. By leveraging an applicant tracking system, e-marketing, and project-based assessments, the program received a 90% increase in applications since 2021.

At Next Shift Learning, we believe in building knowledge from previous experiences. Honoring the lived experiences of our Scholars is key to creating deep and meaningful learning opportunities. 

For example, we provide Scholars with relevant, hands-on projects that allow them to apply their knowledge in a way that resonates with their personal experiences. Our approach helps Scholars acquire new skills while using their rich, unique perspectives and creativity.