The Story of Turing College

Learning is at a crossroads. Driven by changing demands from both students and employers, and a global shift towards remote working and learning, we are witnessing a transformation in the way education works and what it is for.

Turing College is at the vanguard of this change for IT education. We’re accelerating the transition to data-driven learning, so that learners don’t just graduate with a piece of paper, but have a full and detailed record of their skills for prospective employers to inspect. And we’re here to make sure that students are truly prepared for their working life by replicating the way actual IT teams work and teaching the hard and soft skills you will really need.

This is why we are here. But what about how we got here?

2015

Tomas establishes the Turing Society at Erasmus University, Rotterdam as a coding community.

Turing College’s origins lie with the foundation of the Turing Society in Rotterdam in 2015. And Turing Society all started with two students at the Erasmus University - Teodor Cătăniciu and Tomas Moška - who were passionate about coding and entrepreneurship, but just happened to be at a university with no IT faculty.

When Teodor and Tomas met, Teodor had just completed a coding bootcamp in Silicon Valley and wanted to start one in Rotterdam. Meanwhile Tomas, who had been coding for quite some time, was noticing he was the only person among his students and friends that people approached for tech-related matters. Something needed to change.

So they changed it. They founded Turing Society with the goal of giving students the tools to solve problems through tech. And it grew.

2016

Lukas and Benas join Tomas as Co-Founders, and they focus on taking the Turing Society deeper into the field of IT education. The initial ideas for Turing School and Turing College are formed.

Working on similar issues as Teodor and Tomas, but in a different country, Lukas and Benas begun organising  boot camps & tech events in Lithuania. They struggled for over half a year to attract interest because of their relative inexperience and young age. When a mutual friend introduced the group to each other, they found they had a lot in common and decided to join forces. Now that Lukas & Benas had joined Tomas as Co-Founders of the Turing Society, they had an international organisation behind them, which helped the organisation to pick up momentum & take off in Lithuania. 

The group started working on a new strategy for Turing Society - the creation of a 3-stage fully-pledged IT education system that began by offering digital skills education to children, followed by an alternative IT higher education for adults and finally, a startup studio, where graduates could use their skills to build successful businesses. 

2017

Turing School (stage 1 of the plan) is founded to become a leader in digital skills schools for children and teenagers up to 19 years old. Turing School partners with Harvard CS50.

Turing School was founded in 2017 to teach digital skills to children. It is a non-formal school that focuses on IT and entrepreneurship, and has a strong background in academia. Soon after its foundation, Turing School established a partnership with Harvard CS50, Harvard’s introductory course to Computer Science. Guided by experienced academics, Turing School students learn skills like computational thinking and technological creativity that are fast becoming crucial in our digital society. Turing School’s goal is to provide outstanding scholarship that is accessible to every child and accommodates their talents and needs.

2018

Turing Studio (stage 2 of the plan) is founded to begin working with startups with the aim of helping them to build their MVPs & raise capital.

With Turing School established, Lukas stayed to lead it, while Benas and Tomas took on the task of starting the startup studio, Turing Studio.

Turing Studio grew to a team of 20, giving the team firsthand experience of the process of  building products & the initial stages of a tech startup.

The initial benefits of having an education ecosystem in place soon became visible - students of Turing School began applying for internships at Turing Studio, with many noting that having an obvious next step once their education was completed incentivized them to progress further.

2019

Preparation for the stage 3 - the launch of Turing College.

With experience gathered in education & tech startups, the founders began preparing for a transition towards Turing College. Fundraising for Turing College was commenced, and more detailed plans for its concept were formulated.

Monika Simaškaitė was appointed as the new CEO of Turing School - a early-supporter of Turing Society and an expert of IT education. 

2020

Turing College is founded, other activities transition completed.

Transition of Turing School & TuringStudio was completed - Turing School continued to grow with a newly appointed CEO, while Turing Studio was scaled down to maintain existing projects.

The final piece in the puzzle is us, Turing College. Founded in 2020, we represent the fullest realisation yet of the Turing Society’s vision: a data-driven, remote-first IT college. All so our learners can upskill and secure a well-paid position that matches their talent, whether they’re new to coding or have extensive IT experience.