LDC Top 50 2025
Manny Athwal
CEO
School of Coding and AI
In 2015, Manny Athwal was jobless with a child on the way. “I couldn’t put food on the table,” he says. He taught himself to code in under three months and spotted an opportunity to create a coding programme for kids.
When he launched the School of Coding and AI, he was teaching just two pupils a week. Seven years on, his multimillion-pound business now helps adults retrain in AI. Last year, Athwal opened a university with 1,500 students and the business is now international, with offices in Dublin, India and soon, Saudi Arabia. “Nothing will stop us becoming a unicorn in five years.”
We create opportunities for people to reskill, upskill and better themselves, regardless of their age.”
Q&A
What made you launch this business?
I was a qualified lawyer but I lost my job in 2015 and couldn’t find another. My wife was pregnant with our first child and we were broke. We ended up in magistrate’s court for not paying the mortgage. Kids weren’t being taught coding in school so I went to the library and picked up a book on coding. I started teaching kids to code at home and went on to build the largest after-school club provision in the country. I wanted to create opportunities for people like me.
What impact are you making in the world?
Each year we teach 3,000 students and we have helped 450 people back into work so far. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we gave away coding lessons for free to help parents. The late Queen sent me a card to thank me for my service. Last year, we partnered with the University of Wolverhampton to open our own university, and we have 1,500 higher education students studying now. We employ 200 people – 100 of those are in the UK.
That university is also 94 per cent paperless already and we hope to reach 100 per cent paperless within three years. We want to make sure this country is leading in AI. We have also committed to donating 1 per cent of our revenue to good causes each year. But the most important part of this journey is the lives we have changed and the people we have helped back into work.
What have you sacrificed to make this business a success?
There have been a lot of sacrifices. Days when your office becomes your home and your desk becomes your bed. I had to spend a lot of time away from my young family. I have lost so many friendships because I didn’t have time for them. But then I think about the impact we have had. Most of our students say the same thing: we offered them something they never thought they could achieve. We create opportunities for people to reskill, upskill and better themselves, regardless of their age. That’s why we exist.
