This fall New York City will open The Academy for Software Engineering, the city's first public high school that will actually train kids to develop software. The project has been a long time dream of Mike Zamansky, the highly-regarded CS teacher at New York's elite Stuyvesant public high school. It was jump started when Fred Wilson, a VC at Union Square Ventures, promised to get the tech community to help with knowledge, advice, and money.
"Hacker School is a three-month, full-time school in New York for becoming a better programmer. We're free as in beer, and provide space, a little structure, time to focus, and a friendly community of smart builders dedicated to self-improvement."
Job opportunities for technology professionals are fluctuating in the United States, but programming and development skills are hot across the country--especially in Java/J2EE. In New York City, IT managers and networking analysts have also seen a sharp increase in demand.