The Alpha Lumen Institute was founded in São José dos Campos, in 2013, by the Physics, Astronomer and Educator, Nuricel Villalonga Aguilera. The focus was to support young people and children with high skills and articulate social impact solutions through educational actions, together with public schools and needy communities.
Five years later, it was at Alpha Lumen that the founders of DEEP met. Paulo Miranda was a volunteer when Arthur Covatti joined the institute to work in the organization's financial management. At Alpha Lumen, the two decided to dedicate themselves to making a detailed assessment of the impact of the organization's actions and projects. The embryo of DEEP was born there.
“Instituto Alpha Lumen has an incredible education project, an area that, in my opinion, is the starting point for any social advance”, emphasizes Paulo. “It was from this work that we decided to deepen our analysis of the financial and non-financial facts of companies and organizations to develop an innovative method of measuring the extent of the impact of capital on society based on financial and accounting information”, he adds.
DEEP hires students from the first Alpha EdTech class
Alpha Lumen maintains several projects focused mainly on education – among them Alpha EdTech – an accelerated training “code academy”, which hires and pays talents as aspiring devs to develop working on real projects in direct connection with companies and with the work market. Alpha EdTech focuses on low-income or vulnerable people to generate social mobility and deliver new professionals to the technology area.
To learn more about the program and its impact on students and companies, we spoke with Fernanda Bittencourt and Victor Rivelles, the two new DEEPERs who, in September, graduated from the first class of Alpha EdTech.
Fernanda Bittencourt
“At the beginning of the pandemic, I had just left a job. I have a degree in IT – in management, not programming – but I have always worked in administration and commerce. I was never able to work in IT, because when I graduated, it was more difficult for a woman to establish herself in the area. I was looking for something new, still wanting to work in IT, when I saw a post about EdTech. At first, I thought it was a prank: earn to study? There it is! I researched Alpha Lumen and saw that it was a very serious institution. I decided to sign up – after all, I had nothing to lose!
The course was very busy, a lot of information in a short time. Like several other people who had been selected, my programming knowledge was zero. So, to level the group, we were divided into two groups, ours with an initial cycle of nine months and the other, of six. Afterwards, the group was united again.
An important point of the program is that companies define at the beginning the students they want to have as interns and, later, as employees. At first, I hadn't been chosen—perhaps, for my age, well above the class average. But I decided to move on, believing that everything would work out. And gave!
In six months, I started an intern at DEEP and in March of this year I was hired. Today, I work on the front-end and continue to learn every day – both from the challenges at DEEP and from other courses I decided to take. What was a dream became my new reality. And I'm very happy for that and grateful to Alpha EdTech and DEEP and everyone who has accompanied me on this journey.”
Victor Rivelles Junior
“My trajectory was all in the administrative and financial areas of companies, as an employee, consultant and, more recently, partner. In 2019, I made the decision to enter the technology area for good, not for management, but for the core activity, the development of systems. I saw an ad for Alpha EdTech in a media outlet and went to check it out. It was decided to make the career transition to IT. I promised to follow the process until the end and that's exactly what I did..
I spent the first six months fully dedicated to the program. A very interesting point was the emphasis given not only to the technical part but also to soft skills. Then I joined DEEP as an intern and was hired as a Junior Developer this year. Today, I already have a team working with me. I keep studying, developing myself, and feeling more and more like an IT professional. I still have a long way to go, but I feel like I'm heading in the right direction. In the direction I wanted to be!”
