Port-au-Prince, Haiti – September 15, 2025 — At Akademi, our bootcamp programs were designed to be completed remotely. We believe that top-tier education should be accessible, adaptable, and convenient, no matter where a student is located. And while the digital classroom has proven incredibly powerful, our students reminded us of one irreplaceable ingredient: human connection.
This is the story of our Mee-Tech Meetups —a student-led initiative that has become the vibrant, beating heart of our community.
A Student-Inspired Evolution
The Mee-Tech series were not originally on our syllabus. They were born from a direct and passionate request from our bootcamp participants. While they valued the flexibility of online learning, they expressed a deep desire to connect with their peers and instructors beyond the screen—to exchange ideas, troubleshoot problems together, and build the professional networks that are so crucial to a tech career.
Our team listened. We adapted quickly, believing that our greatest responsibility is to respond to the needs of our students. Within weeks, we had scheduled our first gathering, transforming a student suggestion into a program cornerstone.
A Space for Exchange and Inspiration
For the past three months, on the last Saturday of each month, the partner lab at Université Quisqueya in Pétion-Ville has come alive with the energy of our students. These meetups are intentionally informal; students from all three programs are invited to come, socialize, share their project challenges, and celebrate their successes together.
What started as simple networking has evolved into something truly special. Recognizing the thirst for real-world insight, we began inviting pioneers from Haiti’s tech scene to join us.
We have been profoundly honored to host incredible special guests like:
- Kenley Jean, a notable Haitian software engineer and tech innovator.
- Didier Ganthier, a respected engineer and thought leader.
They didn’t just give speeches; they pulled up a chair and hosted genuine, inspiring roundtable discussions. They shared their professional journeys, offered candid advice, and showed our students the tangible heights they can reach
A Grand Finale and a Lasting Legacy
We are thrilled to announce that we will be concluding this summer’s Mee-Tech series with a very special guest on September 27th: Christine Coupet Jacques, a luminary in Haiti’s tech community. We can think of no better way to culminate this incredible series of exchanges.
This entire initiative proves a vital lesson: while online learning provides unparalleled scalability and convenience, nothing can quite replace the power of human rapport. The mentorship, the spontaneous collaborations, and the simple act of building friendships with like-minded peers—these are the elements that transform a curriculum into a community.
We are endlessly grateful that these meetups have served as a crucial space of exchange. The response has confirmed our belief that the future of tech education is hybrid. It is our sincere hope to make the Mee-Tech meetups a permanent, cherished aspect of all future programs in Haiti.
Because we’re not just building technical skills; we’re building a tech ecosystem, together
Photos from the August Mee-Tech at the Petion-Ville Lab