Staff Report

Northwest Mississippi Community College is celebrating the groundbreaking for a sprawling new home for Water Valley’s nonprofit Base Camp Coding Academy (BCCA), which will also provide space to be used by the college.

Representatives from Northwest, a founding partner of BCCA, were on hand for the Jan. 23 groundbreaking ceremony at the new site, a former garment factory in the heart of downtown Water Valley. The 64,000-square-foot facility, named Everest by BCCA leaders, will be Mississippi’s first Rural Education and Innovation Hub.

According to its website, BCCA is a hands-on, challenging and fun program designed to train students to be software developers in 12 months. Students work with real world technologies to learn the fundamentals of coding, app development and the life leadership skills needed to be successful in their careers and competitive in the job market. For the past several years, the nonprofit has been located in a small space in downtown Water Valley.

In the new hub setup, BCCA will allot Northwest an area of just over 18,000-square-feet for classroom and office space. There will also be space allotted for corporate BCCA sponsors and other groups that wish to co-locate in the building. Renovations to the facility, which has been vacant for more than 20 years, are expected to take eight to 10 months.

For more information about BCCA, visit basecampcodingacademy.org. For more information about Northwest’s pathways and programs, visit northwestms.edu.