Quincy Larson founded the non-profit organization FreeCodeCamp to make coding education more accessible and affordable. As a former English teacher without a technical background, he struggled to learn to code on his own and wanted to design the curriculum to be easier for beginners to understand. FreeCodeCamp's learning platform allows individuals to learn coding at their own pace for free. While growing the organization, Larson encountered challenges like having to sell merchandise to make ends meet, but FreeCodeCamp is now used in university curriculums and company training programs. The talk discussed Larson's inspiration and journey in building FreeCodeCamp into the impactful platform it is today.

1. BV E-talk #12 How I Built
freeCodeCamp by Quincy Larson
As technology evolves, the demand of having coding literacy also increases, even for
non-developers’ roles. Coding is also important in every industry and has become
popular among people of all ages, as a result- multiple boot camp has popped up to
answer those demands.
On January 27th, 2021, Bukit Vista collaborating with DSC Monash University
Malaysia, Developer Student Clubs UGM, Developer Student Club ITB, Georgetown
Disruptive Tech, Developers Student Club - NUST, and Developers Student Clubs
Binus University, had the honor to organized an e-talk with Quincy Larson, the
founder of FreeCodeCamp.org, a non-profit organization that features learning
platform, similar to coding boot camp, for free.
The events were held through the 12th BV E-talk where Quincy had introduced us to
his story and journey to made the platform as impactful as it is. The first thing that
we chat about was the inspiration behind building FreeCodeCamp. It was born after
Quincy realize many of the learning platforms were not accessible, both financial
and curriculum wise.
“I learned to code on my own at 30 and it was very difficult because I didn’t have any
technical background- I was a teacher and had an English degree,”
So, when he decided to build FreeCodeCamp, he designs the curriculum around the
beginner’s mindset, which makes it digestible to people with various backgrounds.
He also believes that the way to encourage people to learn is through nurturing and
without any time limitation, so individuals can learn at their own pace that they’re
most comfortable in.
Because at the end of the day he believes that, “anybody motivated can learn to
code,” he also added that the real challenge is to stay motivated throughout the
course of learning, “Even if you quit how do you get up and start again”.

2. Because of how unique the modules planning are, to this date, FreeCodeCamp has
been used as part of universities curriculum and also part of companies’ skill
enhancement program to retrain their employers.
Of course, creating the platform to be where it is now wasn’t easy. He had a few
rocky bumps in establishing the non-profit organization, as he recalls the time he
had to sell merchandise for promotions and to make ends meet for the platform, “if
you’re starting a business, do not rely on merchandise,” he chuckles.
The discussion further continued onto topics sent from the audience and eventually
became into a huddle session, with participants from various countries. Overall, all
parties that were involved in this event had fruitful insights into entrepreneurship
and programming.
If you’re curious to hear about the full session, head to Bukit Vista’s YouTube
Channel. You will be able to explore various webinars and masterclass topics from
digital marketing to data science. We hope that you are inspired by this session of
BV E-Talk, and we cannot wait to see you at our next event!
P.S: Internship opportunities available! bukitvista.com/jobs