Columbia’s First Coworking Community Turns 1, Expands Team and Brings The Iron Yard Code Academy to Columbia, SC

SOCO Celebrates a Year of Coworking in Columbia, SC

COLUMBIA, SC – SOCO, The Columbia Coworking Community, is celebrating its first year in business by announcing a new hire and a collaboration with The Iron Yard to bring a code academy to Columbia, SC.   Located at 823 Gervais Street, Suite 220 in the heart of the Vista Arts & Entertainment District, SOCO is the Columbia region’s first collaborative workspace for designers, freelancers, remote workers, digital entrepreneurs, hackers, bloggers and creative types. It is a member-based community model where people work in an open, collaborative and shared environment.

The group is celebrating its 1-year anniversary with more than 20 cowork members and more than 40 community events hosted under its belt.  “Our vision for SOCO was to create a sort of center of gravity for the creative community to work, convene and connect in unique ways,” stated Gene Crawford, Producer of the ConvergeSE Conference and one of the cofounders of SOCO.  “To have 20 plus creative professionals calling SOCO home is an incredible thing.  That’s a lot of talent.”

As a result of this growth, SOCO has brought Shannon Franklin onto the team as a Community Manager.  Shannon is a freelance marketing professional and recent transplant from Tucson, AZ.  She’ll be responsible for helping support and grow the coworking community and manage SOCO-hosted and supported community events like Refresh Columbia and Pecha Kucha Nights.

“When smart, talented, passionate people come together in an inspiring environment…powerful things happen.  That’s the mentality we’re trying to build here.  Let’s come together and do big things” stated Greg Hilton, a local entrepreneur and one of the cofounders.  “The startup, tech and creative communities are starting to embrace this new culture we’re trying to foster.”

SOCO is also launching the Columbia’s first Code Academy in partnership with the Iron Yard, one of the largest code schools in the U.S.  The Iron Yard Academy teaches intensive, three-month, mentor-driven courses that turn students into a professional junior-level programmers. Students can learn a range of coding skills from web design and front end engineering to mobile engineering and Ruby on Rails.  In January, the first in a series of boot camps will roll out in the Columbia market, starting with a web design offering.

“We see huge opportunities to grow the coding talent base in Columbia, SC.  With a massive student population, a growing tech startup community, and ever increasing global demand for technical talent, there has never been a better time to learn how to code,” stated Peter Barth CEO for the Iron Yard.

Applications are open now at http://soco-work.com/the-ironyard/.

About SOCO
SOCO is Columbia’s first collaborative workspace (Cowork); a new collaborative way to work, connect and get awesome stuff done that is sweeping the globe. By day, we’re a coworking space for designers, freelancers, remote workers, digital entrepreneurs, hackers, bloggers and creative types.  By night, SOCO is an event space that helps connect our community in new and exciting ways.  SOCO’s vision is simple:  help people find better ways to work and more opportunities to connect to the community that they love. www.soco-work.com, @socowork

About The Iron Yard

We are committed to training the highest-quality developers and startups in the world, both in skill and in character. Our mission is to find people who want to pursue the craft and life-long adventure of technology, teach them the tools of the trade, and then release them into the world with the drive and capability to make a difference. We believe that passionate, talented people who love what they do will create great families, jobs, companies and solutions to the world’s problems.  www.theironyard.com @theironyard