Galvanize is a coworking space in Denver dedicated to stimulating the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Today, it is opening the doors to its gSchool, a full-time, six-month web development program.

The 30,000-square foot facility opened in October, with Galvanize touting the three pillars of “capital, community, and curriculum.” Since then, over 100 members have moved in to generate ideas, collaborate, and build companies. Galvanize designed the facility for the needs of early-stage companies, offering options for individuals with ideas to small founding teams to growing businesses with 30 employees. Galvanize’s emphasis is on community and supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem at every phase of development.

However, even with work space, mentorship, and capital, companies cannot grow if they don’t have the team to support it. gSchool seeks to expand the talent pool by providing skills and training to people interested in becoming programmers. The creators of the program guarantee their graduates a job with a minimum salary of $60,000 within three months — or their money back.

“One of the things we face in the microenvironment here at Galvanize is a developer shortage,” said Chris Onan, Galvanize’s managing director of venture capital. “We have 55 companies that call this home, and 40 are looking to hire a web developer. It is holding our companies back, both in the Denver/Boulder area, but more broadly all around the county and the world. Tech talent is an issue, and this is something we are doing to address that.”

gSchool is a partnership with Galvanize and web development firm Jumpstart Lab. The curriculum includes a number of popular coding languages and accommodates a range of skills levels. Students benefit from a rigorous curriculum as well as from proximity to the hotbed of startups and elite group of mentors that are involved with Galvanize. These interactions not only provide opportunities to gain practical experience but also to build relationships that can support their own careers.

Jeff Casimir is the cofounder of Jumpstart Labs and the program director of gSchool. He has an extensive background in education and said his goal is to turn “normal people” into professional web developers.

“I think the sheer practice of skills is more significant than the amount of materials,” he said in an interview with VentureBeat. “We could go over everything the students need to know in a few weeks, but that’s not good enough. They need to practice those skills so they become automatic. They need to be able to know the hard things are possible and have a toolkit. The startup community can’t wait for colleges to change their curriculum.”

While Galvanize and gSchool have the immediate goal of stimulating the Denver/Boulder startup scene, the vision is ultimately to be part of a larger, nationwide effort to address unemployment and tech labor shortages by offering an alternative form of education. Onan said there are far too many college graduates saddled with debt and working as bartenders or waitresses because they can’t find jobs, and as a result, attitudes about traditional career paths are changing.

“Millennials are moving to Denver and Boulder in droves to start companies,” Onan said. “The Corporate America game has been played. There is so much activity here, a lot that we owe to Brad Feld and David Cohen. A lot of the Galvanize companies have graduated from TechStars. Galvanize and gSchool are additive to that community. We want to see this become a tech epicenter attracting people from all over the world.”

By offering a place to work, an active support network, opportunities for capital, events, and education, Galvanize strives to leave no need untouched for entrepreneurs. All that’s left is ski lessons.

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If you’re one of the young women entrepreneurs behind Black Girls Hack in Atlanta, Georgia, you organize a hackathon. But not your run-of-the-mill standard white male sausage-fest hackathon — this is going to be a “blackhack.”

And it’s a blackhack for women.

Inspired by Black Girls Code in San Francisco, four women founded Black Girls Hack to inspire African American women (and girls) to be software developers and startup founders, as well as to gather, communicate with, and connect all those who already are.

I talked to one of the founders, Amanda Spann, who also serves as the PR coordinator of Black Girls Hack.

“We’re all African American, and we all have tech startups,” she said. “One thing we all struggle with is feeling like we’re the only ones … there are so few blacks in technology.”

Spann is starting up Glamobile, a review and recommendation community in the fashion and shopping space that is currently in stealth mode. Another founder, Kat Calvin, is starting Character’s Closet, a startup that will allow fans to find and eventually purchase their favorite TV and movie stars outfits.

Instead of bemoaning the fact that it can be tough to find black developers — especially female ones — and accepting it as the status quo, the women decided to do something about it.

The first thing they’re doing is #blackhack, and it’s happening November 16-17 in Atlanta. Spann expects about 100 African American women coders to show up, and she’s already excited with the early enthusiasm.

“We’re really amped to have people on board,” she said. “And MailChimp came on only two days after we announced as a title sponsor.”

The event is being run as a charity, and all proceeds from ticket sales will go to Black Girls Code.

photo credit: kk+ via photopin cc

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Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

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Roman Koci is a computer science student, and like many of his contemporaries, he dreams of launching a successful app to inspire and entertain.

After several failed ideas, he decided to create a game that would test users on their pop culture knowledge, proving the adage that we can never get enough celebrity gossip. Celebrity Quiz Game, Roman’s free app for iOs and iPad, has made its way to one of the top 15 most downloaded apps in the entertainment category in his native Slovakia. It was developed in just a few months.

And, by the way, Roman is blind. He’s one of the first blind programmers in the world to successfully launch an app.

With strides made in technology for the blind and visually impaired, it is now possible for blind programmers like Roman to both use and develop apps, as well as use text and email without any heavy equipment. For instance, CNN reported that BrailleTouch, a touch-screen braille keyboard for smartphones developed earlier this year, is so fast that sighted people are using it too.

Roman used a suite of tools, including braille display for iOs and screenreader, and a Corona SDK.  The screenreader is designed to interpret the content on a computer screen and re-present it to the user in audio, text-to-speech, or a Braille output device.

Roman told me he is more effective when programming using braille than when using voice commands. ”It’s easier to read the text with my fingers,” he said. Roman is already working with his cofounder on an Android version of the app, slated for release later this summer.

Image of Braille-writer via Stanford University