Hackers. The topic I have a conversation about at every industry event I attend. It’s always same conversation. And it’s been going on for at least three years. Hackers.

Or rather, the lack of hackers in the local market.

Put simply, our Startup Nation has been heading down a dangerous path for too long. There is just a crippling lack of hackers. By this I mean modern-day developers with not one, but an array of programming languages on their tool-belts. Developers that are versatile and capable of developing full-blown products on their couch, or at a bootstrap startup.

Nine months ago I grew tired of having the same old conversation, watching nodding agreement, and seeing nothing happen about it. So I started pushing a flake of snow down a hill. That flake snowballed.

Today I am ecstatic to announce the founding and launch of ‘CodeBlue’, a non-profit hacker academy where developers will be taught languages such as PHP, iOS, Android, Ruby, and more.

The idea is to teach classes upon classes of existing developers new skill-sets. Then we’re going to expand it to teenagers. Then we’re going to expand it to professional training from scratch.

CodeBlue was founded to be as frictionless as possible by having the courses be dirt-cheap. As in 750nis for 48-hour courses, making it a no-brainer to jump-in and enroll in them.

CodeBlue was not easy to get off the ground and some ‘thank you’s’ are in order:

First and foremost to Daniel Recanati was absolutely pivotal in the formation of CodeBlue. Not only was he instrumental in the structuring of CodeBlue as a non-profit, self-sufficient program, but his family’s philanthropic arm, the Yahel Foundation, provided the capital to get CodeBlue off the ground. 

Second to thank is AppleSeeds, a fantastic and professionally run non-profit organization that embraced CodeBlue and will be managing its day-to-day operation. Eran Raviv played a key role in realizing CodeBlue and will be heading the program internally.

Third to thank is Zeev Suraski, one of the co-founders of PHP. With Zeev’s gracious help, CodeBlue was able to receive Zend’s official Education curriculum, completely free of charge. 

Finally, special thanks to Yotam Troim for CodeBlue’s logo.

For more information go to www.codeblue.org.il. You can also follow it on Twitter, here.

And now, let’s hack Israel.