E is for Eskwelabs Issue 75 - Embracing the Soulful Future of Work: Celebrating Four Years of Eskwelabs 🎶

This letter is a bridge that connects what we do and what YOU CAN DO as part of our community.

May 19, 2023

Ciao! This is Meg speaking. 😉 We have a four-year-old, and it’s us! 🎂 It has been an eventful past couple of days for the Eskwelabs community. I find our recent events and projects vibing harmoniously with our anniversary as it is a testament to our commitment to bridge the skills gap. 🌉 The future of learning and of work isn’t so far away after all because we’re bringing the opportunities to you, dear readers.

If Eskwelabs is a bridge, so is this letter. It might be that not everyone receiving this is a learner of ours—maybe some are enthusiasts, or individuals and potential partners who share our vision. 🌌 Either way, we’re grateful to have you here, so consider this letter as a way to connect you to what we do and what YOU CAN DO as part of our community.

Buckle up and gear up 🚗 for the questions we’ll be answering in this letter:

What is Eskwelabs most proud of in the past year? 🎉
What motivates our learning community to continue and improve the impactful work that we do? 🙌
What excites the learners the most in the coming days? 📅

Happy reading! 💪

Reading time: 9 minutes

GE4R UP: FOURward we go!

This theme encapsulates Eskwelabs’ unwavering commitment to empowering individuals and organizations through skills for the future of learning and the future of work. 👏

Our people are gearing up in skill. 📈

You are as capable as the hands that guide you—and the Eskwelabs team values upskilling now more than ever. 👐 The opportunities to learn go even beyond our Learning Day initiatives.

For example, every Monday our Project Manager Glydelle Amon sends a compilation of resources called the Weekly News Roundup. 📰 She shares news and articles on the edtech space as well as upcoming events that are relevant to our roles.

Our Chapter meetings are also opportunities for members to grow. 🗂️ Chapters are an open group of people working for the company with the same job roles and have the same area of itnerest. In a recent meeting, we did a proofreading workshop as our team takes on more copyediting tasks in their roles.

We also practiced data cleaning 🧹 as part of our efforts to be more data-driven in the work that we do.

Apart from the examples above, members of our team have been proactively enhancing their skills. 💯

Because our Eskwelabs website is built using a no-code website builder called Weblow, our Junior Brand Designer Kiana Carlos took an Intro to Webflow Series course. Read about her insights here! 🖥️
Senior Project Manager Robyn Jereza shares what project she would do if she had unlimited time and resources. 🚌
Data Science Fellowship Cohort 8 alum and technical writer Basty Vergara has been writing a series of blogs 📚 dedicated to explaining data analytics concepts to those who are interested in our bootcamps! Check out his work on Asking the Right Questions and Domain Research, Analytics Mindset and Analytics Pipeline, and Data Visualization for Data Analysis.

This collective and individual growth is manifested through our Professional Learning Plans (PLP). 📖 PLPs are common in the L&D and education space, and it intentionally allows us to invest in the development of our team members. 🌱 We fill up a blank questionnaire about our entire stay at the company, and the prompts in the PLP help us continuously acquire the knowledge and mindsets we need in order to thrive at Eskwelabs and beyond. Read more about this practice here!

Our products are gearing up in impact. ☄️

The Data Analytics Bootcamp and Data Science Fellowship started out as avenues to learn data skills. Over the years, these bootcamps have evolved into teaching future-relevant skills, such as leadership, having a growth mindset, public speaking, and entrepreneurship—on top of technical skills. 🌅

We also nurture this community further by adopting a people-first mindset, equipping our mentors and instructors with Psychosocial First Aid training, Disability Sensitivity training, and Cultural Sensitivity training. 💯 These pieces of training took place in the recent Mentor Orientation Program held last March 16. Read Instructional Management Lead Den Briones and Chief of Staff Francine Tan’s insights on Eskwelab’s investment in growing their instructional staff here.

We are also proud of our Learning Sprints—our project-based live cohort experience designed to enhance technical capabilities, anchored in data skills for a team or an organization’s unique use case. 📝 Download our Learning Sprint Catalogue here to learn more about the sprints that we offer!

Check out these case studies to see the sprints in action:

The continuous improvement and transformation of our bootcamps and sprints ensure that our products are ready to adapt to innovation and change in the modern digital world. 🌎

See for yourself! Cohort 11 of our Data Analytics Bootcamp is still open for Admissions~

We’ll be having an Open House 🏠 on June 1 to answer any questions you may have about the program. | https://bit.ly/DABC11OpenHouse
To prepare for the Pathfinder Assessment Exam, you can attend our first Review Session ✏️ on June 15. | https://bit.ly/Register-DABC11-RS1
Review Session 2 📒 will be held on June 29 for those who can’t make it on the first one. | https://bit.ly/Register-DABC11-RS2
🗓️ Classes start on July 24. | https://eskwe.link/DABootcamp

Lastly, our partnerships are gearing up at scale. 🌱

We’re ecstatic to launch our first-ever BPI-sponsored Data Science Fellowship cohort! 🚀

The BPI Data Science Fellowship offers a fully-funded and intensive learning program for aspiring financial data scientists. 📊 Learners work on 4 projects with expert mentors, culminating in presentations to industry professionals. The curriculum covers fundamental and advanced skills, from data preprocessing to predictive modeling and AI-generated visualizations. 🧠 Participants learn machine learning techniques for business solutions and develop data presentation skills.

This program features:

✅ 100% of the tuition being sponsored by BPI
✅ 1:6 Mentor Ratio
✅ Employment opportunity with BPI
✅ Remote Online Classes
✅ Onsite Socials and Events (Makati City)
✅ Programming Language - Python

Fresh graduates, career changers, job seekers, and aspiring data scientists are encouraged to sign-up! 💗 Register here: https://bit.ly/BPIDSF

Another thing to look forward to is our continuing relations with the Department of Foreign Affairs of Australia through their Business Partnerships Platform! 😮 In Issue 76, we’ll share news on what this means for our partner FHMoms and our Data Literacy Skillscourse program!

We’ve barely started our fifth year, but the good news just keeps pouring in. 😊Last May 10, we had our first onsite event since the pandemic! The Analytics Association of the Philippines (AAP) and Eskwelabs hosted a successful Career Fair on May 10, 2023, at Astbury Makati. 👏

Here’s a summary of what transpired in this insightful event:

Keynote speakers from HomeCredit and BPI, two major financial firms, offered insights into the changing world of analytics. 👩‍🏫
Alumni of Eskwelabs' Data Science Fellowship and Data Analytics Bootcamp, Heide Balcera and Seth Blanco, shared how the programs helped launch their careers. 🌠
Francine Tan, Eskwelabs' Chief of Staff, ran a Career Skills Workshop with advice on networking. 📲
Recruiters from BPI, HomeCredit, J.P. Morgan & Co., Arch Global Services Inc., and GCash gave insight into their hiring processes and company culture. 🌇

This successful event would not have been possible without the AAP, our partner companies, the 50 participants, and the collective effort of the team. Way to go!

What you’ve just read is a summarized version of what drives us with passion this fifth year—the excitement for our vision and goals cannot simply be contained in a letter. 💞 With that, Issue 76 is definitely something we can look forward to! We’ll talk about the future we share as we all move forward in our learning journey together. 🌈

Thanks for the opportunity to connect. See you next time!

💌 Learning with you,

Meg Ruiz

Junior Content Designer at Eskwelabs

E is for Eskwelabs