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Questions fréquentes What is the main educational approach used at Holberton School? Holberton School employs a project-based learning approach, where students learn by completing tasks individually or in groups rather than through traditional lectures. This method emphasizes self-directed learning and collaboration, allowing students to develop practical skills in coding and software development.
How does Holberton School ensure inclusivity in its programs? What role does technology play in the educational model at Holberton? What types of projects do students work on at Holberton School? Who founded Holberton School and what was their motivation? Killian Flagey
impact.info director
Published on 3 September 2026
Photo credit — Actual School
Transcript Audio in English· AI-generated transcript
0:00 If it's only, you know, white men like me doing software developments, then the world 0:05 is not represented in a good way. 0:08 Impact.info, doing things differently. 0:12 The Holberton School trains developers, the all important people behind the information 0:17 technology reaching almost every last corner of most of our lives. 0:23 Can we really call that positive societal impact? 0:26 Yes, we can. 0:28 As we're going to hear from today's guest. 0:32 My name is Julien Cyr and I'm CEO of Holberton France. 0:36 Hello Julien. 0:37 Hi Vanessa. 0:38 Well, you heard the challenge. 0:40 But before you explain that positive impact, can I just get you to tell us about the school? 0:46 In terms of curriculum, what differentiates you from IT or computer science engineering 0:52 courses at universities? 0:55 In one line, we don't prep for a job or for a specific technology. 0:59 We prep our students for their career. 1:01 And how we do that? 1:03 We do that by teaching them how to learn, how to learn by themselves, how to learn together 1:08 with something different that we call project based learning. 1:11 Basically every day we give them some tasks to accomplish alone or in groups. 1:16 It's guided and they learn progressively how to code. 1:19 And we don't teach or train on a specific modern technologies. 1:24 We train on fundamentals, programming languages, databases, such things. 1:29 And then we go up to the stack so they can be efficient on their job. 1:33 But what's super important for us is really to train for a career and not for something 1:37 that's super fancy today, for something that can keep longer. 1:41 Okay. 1:42 And so you train people specifically to code? 1:45 Exactly. 1:46 To code video games, to code application, websites, e-learning platforms, every application 1:51 you could use on your phone or on your desktop, but also, you know, to code some specific 1:56 application for hospitality, for bank, for corporation. 2:00 Basically every time you use your computer or your phone, it can be an application done 2:04 by one of our students. 2:05 Okay. 2:06 And this is what we call developers. 2:07 That's correct. 2:08 This is the career they have. 2:09 Yeah. 2:10 Right. 2:11 So it's the fact that it's project based rather than top down teaching. 2:16 Is that the main difference? 2:17 That's the main difference because we have no teacher. 2:19 We don't give any lectures and we have no classroom. 2:23 Our students work together in open spaces and they work on real stuff. 2:27 So on D0, the first day at school, it's quite simple. 2:30 You know, they just go through very simple project, very guided with how to do, and then 2:35 we will remove the barrier and they will go from working to running. 2:39 And that's the way we do. 2:40 And we strongly believe that it's important to have like foundation, solid foundations. 2:46 So you say it is guided, but it's not guided by a teacher. 2:50 No, it's guided by technologies. 2:52 Basically, when we started in San Francisco almost 10 years ago, we were an edtech company. 2:58 That means we build softwares, we build e-learning platforms that allow us to give projects to 3:03 our students and to hold their hands so they can move forward through the curriculum. 3:08 So at the beginning, it's a small project with many tasks and you have like some videos, 3:12 some podcasts, some documentation that they can learn from and then they do their task. 3:17 And when they are done with the task, we develop what we call a checker. 3:20 It's an AI that will provide feedback to them and tell them what they could improve, what 3:25 they got wrong, how they should have done it. 3:27 And then they can go on the next task and when they complete all the tasks of a project, 3:31 they can go to the next project and so on and so on. 3:33 And after a few months doing that, the last project is not a one day, one task project. 3:38 It's a three week project with many, many tasks and they can do it alone. 3:43 Right. 3:44 Is there any human input? 3:46 Is there like a mentoring system or? 3:49 Yes. 3:50 Basically, our students, they come on campuses, like physical campuses, even though we don't 3:54 have formal classrooms. 3:56 And even if we don't have formal teachers, we have coach and coach are there to be sure 4:01 they are not struggling too much. 4:03 They are struggling enough, not providing answers, but provide some guidance, you know, 4:08 so they don't get stuck. 4:10 And be sure that the all cohorts are working together. 4:13 Be sure that the peer to peer learning is also working and, you know, doing some demonstration. 4:18 Be sure that there is some life on the campus so that they are real students, not just people 4:23 behind their screens. 4:24 Yeah. 4:25 OK. 4:26 OK. 4:27 That's clear. 4:28 Yeah. 4:29 So presumably that was the initial blueprint. 4:31 Now, as you said, I know you were founded almost 10 years ago and it was in San Francisco 4:36 by yourself, Sylvain Calache and another Julien, Julien Barbier. 4:40 That's correct. 4:41 And you're all French software engineers. 4:44 So was this pretty innovative model? 4:47 Was that a reaction against your own education in France? 4:52 Part of yes, because basically when we had this idea of a school, we were like what could 4:57 have been our dream school? 4:59 If we could build something from scratch, what could it be? 5:02 What would be the perfect scenarios to run a school? 5:05 And it's what we did. 5:07 We took like all that we don't like and everything that we dreamed of to build the company. 5:11 We wanted a school open to everyone, a school we can give a chance to anyone, remove all 5:17 the barriers to enter like, you know, higher education system. 5:21 So the financial barrier, the social barrier, the diversity barrier, we wanted to take that 5:25 down. 5:26 So, you know, when you want to have a quality education, most of the time you need to rely 5:30 on teachers to have good teachers. 5:32 But it's super hard to recruit good teachers. 5:34 It takes years to train a teacher. 5:36 So that's one of the main points. 5:38 How could we have high quality education without having the struggle of hiring good teachers? 5:42 And the answer was like true technology. 5:44 So we developed a software to orchestrate the schools, the content, the scheduling, 5:49 and also the correction, the feedback that we can provide to students. 5:52 So in that way, anywhere you follow like an Holberton school training, you have the 5:55 same quality. 5:56 It doesn't depend on like, did we hire a good teacher or not? 6:00 Well, that in fact, I think gives us some elements already in your answer to that challenge 6:05 at the beginning. 6:07 So here we go. 6:08 In what way does Holberton have a positive impact on society? 6:15 That's a tricky question because especially nowadays with artificial intelligence, we 6:19 can see that it can have a very positive impact or very bad impacts. 6:23 But our intent first was to be open. 6:26 Why be open? 6:27 Because when you develop a program, when you develop softwares, you put a part of it into 6:31 it. 6:32 So if it's only, you know, white men like me doing software developments, then the world 6:37 is not represented in a good way in all softwares, all applications. 6:41 You must have like people with all kinds of backgrounds doing coding stuff. 6:44 So that was something very important for us to have like a good impact. 6:47 Positive impact is to be open to anyone and to be sure that any people from any kind of 6:52 background will join us, not only can join us, but will join us. 6:57 So we work hard on that with role models in the U.S. to be sure like under-representative 7:01 people are represented and think about us and think about, yes, I can become a good 7:06 software developer and have an impact on this world. 7:09 Secondly, is to showcase that software development is not just, you know, the cool app on iPhone 7:15 or like this cool website or this cool video games. 7:18 It's also like, how could you have an impact on healthcare? 7:22 Could you have an impact on hospitality? 7:24 How could you make the world more accessible? 7:25 So the example we choose on our curriculums, the project student work on, they try to reflect 7:32 all those aspects of the world, you know, to open their eyes, to be sure that when they 7:36 develop a website, it's accessible for like handicapped people, disabled people, to be 7:40 sure that the wording that is used in our project is inclusive. 7:44 So we don't do magic, we just try our best to give certain culture to our students and 7:49 to be sure that when they choose a job, they choose a good job that could have a positive 7:53 impact. 7:54 Okay. 7:55 So, in fact, inclusivity is a really key notion. 7:58 Yeah. 8:04 Enough about the school. 8:06 What about the CEO himself? 8:09 Can I get you to think back to yourself, aged 16? 8:15 How do you think that that, Julien Cyr, would feel about what you're doing today? 8:20 This is interesting. 8:22 So basically, you know, when I was a teenager, I was envisioning myself working as a software 8:28 engineer in New York City, doing some software developments. 8:32 I never thought about myself, you know, managing a school, like being those people where when 8:37 I was a student, when I was in high school, I was like, oh, I want to get out as soon 8:41 as possible. 8:42 I want to be in tech. 8:43 But at some point, you realize that actually what I didn't like, I could change. 8:48 So when you feel that you can change something positively, you feel it's the right thing 8:52 to do. 8:53 And then you end up being in the position I am today. 8:56 So 16-year-old you? 8:58 16-year-old me, yeah, no, I would have not thought that I would be in my chair today. 9:03 And yeah, maybe I could, in some way, disappoint myself because I'm not in the patient field 9:09 I thought I would be. 9:11 But in another way, I think I will be proud of myself because I have a positive impact 9:15 on people wearing my shoes when I was 16. 9:17 Yes, good point. 9:18 And do you actually, within your job, do you yourself get to do tech, get to do any coding, 9:24 any developing? 9:25 Yes. 9:26 So actually, I don't have to, but I still do. 9:30 True passion. 9:31 Yeah, true passion still. 9:33 I think it's the balance I need to stay, you know, in the business I am. 9:37 So there is some stuff I don't ask my tech team to do and I handle myself. 9:41 When I have a new idea, I could code it myself. 9:43 And especially nowadays with AI and like all the vibe coding tools that we have at our 9:48 disposal, we can do some great stuff super quickly. 9:50 So it's good for the people in my position to be able to do business, but also like back 9:55 in the coding chair. 9:56 Yes. 9:57 Yes, of course. 9:58 Well, Julien Sir, thank you very much for talking to us on the podcast. 10:02 Thanks very much, Vanessa, for having me. 10:05 That was impact.info, doing things differently. ![[Rebroadcast] Why set up an IT developer school in a world full of IT engineering schools?](/_next/image?url=%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F05%2FJulien-Cyr-3.jpg&w=1920&q=75)
