As a former basketball player for James Madison University, Matthew Parker knows those post-graduation blues, when the hoop dream goes bust and new career options don’t line up.
“Almost zero percent of college athletes go on to play professional,” said Parker. And while in school, “they miss out on a lot of opportunities as far as professional development.”
That’s why he created Gradtap, a training program held in his NoMa home that brings athletes up to speed on skills like design thinking, digital marketing and coding.
Parker wants to create “a resource and a place where students can come, pick up the additional skills that they didn’t get through a normal degree.”
To help them reach for the best options, Gradtap is currently focused on the technological field.
“Every company is now becoming a tech company,” said Parker. “It’s the place with the largest need and the widest gap.”
The four-week program launched in August costs $1,700 to $2,700, including sessions with a career coach and lunch-and-learn events with local companies, like EverFi, Optoro and Clarabridge.
As part of this season’s curriculum, Gradtap’s three inaugural students were also assigned a project to present at Clarabridge’s offices in Reston.
Good times with the first cohort of @Grad_HQ. Couldn't have a better group to start this mission. #DCfest @DC_Inno pic.twitter.com/4G3evlOKCH
— mattaparker (@mattaparker) September 16, 2015
Join our growing Slack community
Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!
Donate to the Journalism Fund
Your support powers our independent journalism. Unlike most business-media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational contributions.

Trustible raises $4.6M, mainly from local funders, to hire and expand customer reach

DC is no longer one of the world’s top 15 places to start a company

This Virginia startup is developing tech to make data centers more energy efficient
