Colorado Companies to Watch 2015: Education

Gigi Sukin //July 17, 2015//

Colorado Companies to Watch 2015: Education

Gigi Sukin //July 17, 2015//

EDUCATION

DevelopIntelligence

Boulder – developintelligence.com – Founded: 1996

Companies, both in the technology field and those across other industries with IT needs, are willing to go to battle to offer compensation and perks to attract top talent. We hear it all the time: one of the crucial complaints in hiring today is that there are not enough engineers and developers to support demand.

40,000 — Since 2003, that’s the number of new engineers across 200 worldwide organizations that DevelopIntelligence has helped successfully adopt new technology skills. Considered a learning partner, the Boulder-based tech-ed firm works with companies to understand what people need to know, and align skills with strategic goals, designing custom, iterative developer academies. DevelopIntelligence designs, delivers and manages world-class technical learning programs for software development and engineering organizations looking to attract, retain and grow technology talent.

Senior developers and architects, the higher-up, more experienced people in the industry, are hard to find and expensive to keep. There aren’t enough of them around, so DevelopIntelligence focuses on the path to skills: starting with the knowledge base and then building on the experience of upper-level people.

Worth Watching: With clients in Silicon Valley and along the East Coast, DevelopIntelligence is looking to benefit more Colorado companies with its managed learning solutions. Additionally, the company only recently gave up working with individual students, instead working hand-in-hand with organizations to tackle their talent gaps.

JMark Services Inc.

Colorado Springs – jmarkservices.com – Founded 2010

JMark addresses critical educational gaps in the defense department and seeks to shape and assess the information environment.

Getting off the ground with just a single customer only five short years ago, today JMark develops onsite and virtual training programs for defense customers and international allies, from intelligence to homeland security, cyber security, national security organizations, and commercial entities with education, training, research and analysis programs. With customers ranging from the Australian Defense Force to each of the U.S. military branches, JMark’s approach as a small, agile business has powered exceptional growth during the past four years, in employee numbers and annual receipts; revenues over that time have increased by an average of 97 percent annually.

KEEP WATCHING FOR: With the objective to continue its international expansion, JMark is set to design and conduct a first-ever comprehensive intelligence-training course for the Royal Saudi Air Force.

The CE Shop

Greenwood Village – theceshop.com – Founded: 2005

“Real estate is one of the last entrepreneurial opportunities with a very low barrier to entry,” says Michael McAllister, CEO of The CE Shop.

He says the hole he saw in the marketplace when inventing his business was that real estate professionals are highly mobile, social and connected online, but they each had to go sit in a brick and mortar classroom to receive mandatory continuing education credit. So, he created a product to make the classroom available to them anytime, anywhere.

Though it’s virtual, The CE Shop is attempting to redefine the learning experience, getting its start with real estate.  In 2013, the company relocated from Fargo, N.D., to Colorado in an effort to grow the business and expand product offerings.

This year, the company introduced LEAP, a new learning management system that delivers an experience using:

Inquiry-based presentation

Contextual interactive scenarios

Mastery-based progression

Custom resource types

Resources include video, audio, text and a variety of interactive experiences. 

KEEP WATCHING: Real estate pre-licensing courses on a new platform will be available nationwide, with state-specific content in the next 24 to 36 months as the company continues to realize its mission to innovate career education. Moreover, real estate is one of many industries that require regulated licensing education. The goal is to work with regulators to develop curriculum to potentially add different vertical markets.