When talking about accessibility, we’re referring to assisting people dealing with any form of disability, from common to uncommon. Whether it’s someone with a broken arm or impaired vision, accessibility lets people do what they need to with nearly the same time and effort as someone without a disability.

To better serve all of our customers, we’ve been dedicated to making our products and services more accessibility compliant for over 30 years. We’re passionate about accessibility because it makes our services easier for people to use, and ties back to our core values in more ways than one.

Providing superior customer experiences.

Our accessibility team includes software engineers, architects, and project managers with extensive experience in web development and document remediation to make products and services accessibility compliant. Our application of accessibility best practices identifies structural and design issues, allowing for rapid and comprehensive remediation to achieve accessibility and meet compliance standards. We’re passionate about achieving accessibility because we want customers to be happy with our easy-to-use services.

Creating an awesome work environment.

To provide accessibility to customers, you need to first establish a culture of accessibility from within. At Nelnet we do that by having accessibility advocates in all levels of our business lines. It’s critical to raise awareness about accessibility needs with all associates — accessibility is everyone’s responsibility. We also offer a variety of accessibility training to all associates, with certain courses required annually. And we employ people with disabilities in a variety of roles. Not only do individuals with disabilities help us fill our talent pool, but they also help teammates become more sensitive to the value of accessibility.

Communicate openly and honestly.

Accessibility is never complete, it must be continuously worked on as a process. Guidelines and standards change, and we strive to ensure our products adhere to Section 508 regulations and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA. Meeting current regulations guarantees that we’re doing our best to meet our customers’ needs, because we’re here to serve everyone.

Keep an eye on your calendar for the 31^st Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, and if you want to learn more about Nelnet’s accessibility efforts, read all about them here.

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Nelnet’s Coding Academy is an online, immersive course that grants associates the opportunity to learn technologies such as TypeScript, Angular, C# and more in a fast-paced educational setting. The first pilot group, which includes 10 Nelnet associates, is partway through an 18-week program working with instructors from Nebraska Dev Lab. A partnership between Doane University and Don’t Panic Labs, Nebraska Dev Lab aims to address the shortage of qualified IT and technical talent by offering a program that provides instruction to better equip both new and experienced developers.

The second pilot group of 12 associates is enrolled in a 12-week program led by instructors at Galvanize. Described as a “technology ecosystem for learners, entrepreneurs, startups, and established companies,” Galvanize aims to help close the gap in the rapidly changing digital world by providing an educational course designed to foster innovation and technical growth.

Of course, even with such amazing partnerships, it isn’t easy to pilot a new, multi-week, educational program like the Coding Academy. However, with feedback gathered from both pilot groups, Nelnet hopes to be able to offer a tailored learning opportunity to even more associates in the future.

“Being the first group, I mean, it’s paving the way for everyone else,” said Patrick, a student in the Galvanize group. “It feels good to be the trailblazer. No expectations. We give our best effort possible to move the program forward for other people.”

Both programs require students to dedicate 40 hours or more a week to lectures, projects, tutorials, and overall learning. During the programs, all other job responsibilities are eliminated. To assist with the learning, experienced Nelnet software engineers volunteered to mentor the students. Their guidance and the open, honest communication that has been established between the students and the Coding Academy leadership are critical to the program’s success. Weekly surveys are also conducted throughout the program to ensure that students’ needs are being met, and to allow individuals to express any concerns or issues they may have.

Ramesh has been at Nelnet for 2.5 years and is a student in the Nebraska Dev Lab group. He has experience in legacy development practices, but strives to learn as much as he can in the distributed world of development to help him provide even more value to Nelnet. He’s had a positive and exciting learning experience through the Coding Academy, and he is grateful for Nelnet’s commitment to their associates.

“One of the things that I haven’t seen before is that we are not responsible for our other job functions. We are dedicated to this program. Nelnet is dedicated to this program. That kind of support is unheard of,” said Ramesh.

Nelnet’s support in this educational journey derives from our core value of pursuing opportunities for diversification and growth – a value which applies not just to the company as a whole, but also to individual associates. Coding Academy mentor Drew Brandon is impressed by Nelnet’s commitment to help modernize technology careers within the company – key to creating, maintaining, and retaining talented associates.

After these programs have concluded, Coding Academy graduates will be more equipped and on a fast track to becoming full-stack developers within Nelnet. Returning to work will also be exciting as all associates who graduate from the program will be able to showcase their new knowledge and further their professional careers as they join new and existing modern development teams.

Deb, a student of the Coding Academy, explained that this program has shown her how much there still is to learn and how influential working with others can be.

“It’s interesting to be around so many smart people,” she said in regards to her classmates. “We are peer programming, which I’ve never done before, and ultimately just helping each other out when we need it. I think I like that part the best.”

Teamwork has driven this program since the very first day. The students are working together to increase their technical knowledge – just as Nelnet works with our associates to support and foster a positive educational experience. At Nelnet, we’re dedicated to developing our associates and will continue to find opportunities, such as the Coding Academy, to continue to prove it.

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Cyber Security at Nelnet

Nelnet CyberSecurity maintains an enterprise cyber security team to defend against exploitation, manage vulnerabilities, and orchestrate logistics operations. These tasks align Nelnet and specific business segments to the appropriate cost/risk-level of security posture, compliance standards, and fulfillment of audit engagements at a moment’s notice. Through this mission, they align themselves directly with the business goals and strategies of Nelnet while providing the essential confidentiality, integrity, and availability directives.

A Growing Need

As you might expect, the department has grown substantially over the last two years to meet the growing needs of all business segments. Nelnet CyberSecurity helps ensure departments throughout the company are not only compliant, but are leading the initiative to put security first. Maturing communications and relationships between business segments and the teams that make up Nelnet CyberSecurity are key factors in cyber security success.

Working Together

Six Nelnet CyberSecurity teams work together to provide a variety of services to all Nelnet businesses.

• Leadership and Program Management: Cyber enterprise architecture and management of programs and projects
• Vulnerability Operations: Scan, assess, and remediate vulnerabilities
• Offensive Operations: Penetration testing and application security
• Defensive Operations: Threat hunting, monitoring, architectural design, and cyber defense
• Logistics Operations: Policy, compliance, education, and incident response
• Risk Management Operations: Risk management, audit, and compliance

Recent Successes

The growth of Nelnet CyberSecurity’s team capabilities have paved the way for some very powerful contributions to Nelnet. Their important work affects the quality of work life and safety of Nelnet associates and businesses.

• In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they teamed up with other business segments and executive leadership to act fast. Together, they moved 6,500 associates to secure work-from-home solutions within 2 weeks! Additionally, Nelnet CyberSecurity implemented modern multi-factor authentication for remote work. The team decreased attack surface/exposure by shifting around 1,000 users to virtual desktops. Their Ethical Hackers team tested secure remote work solutions in real time as Nelnet scaled our work from home capacity.
• Recently, the team safeguarded a senior Nelnet executive from an email bomb. This cyber threat caused them to receive more than 3,000 emails in 15 minutes.
• Since March, they’ve defended over 100 million attempts to connect to our network from China and Russia.
• They’ve reduced the amount of time needed to investigate a threat from hours to minutes using contextual threat intelligence.
• Currently, the team is using their security-first approach to apply cyber security by design for cloud operations. These will be used be used by Nelnet Bank, Velocity, and other future developments.

You can rest a little easier knowing Nelnet CyberSecurity is working hard 24/7 to keep you and your data safe, and they’re ready to respond to threats at a moment’s notice.

For more information on Nelnet CyberSecurity services, visit the CyberSecurity Portal. Want to join the team? Check out available opportunities on our website.

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There’s no such thing as a normal day in Eduardo’s line of work, but his team has come to rely on him to bring a wide variety of expertise across different industries and continents to the table. He invites collaboration to keep everything moving in the right direction with Nelnet’s Velocity platform, which is a system that guides the development of innovative and easy-to-use online products.

“I have my daily responsibilities just like everyone else, but I try to combine the strategic aspect of my role with the tactical duties of the team, staying close by to help out,” Eduardo said. “We’re in the early stages of product development for Velocity, and we’re working with local STEM students to familiarize them with what we’re working on. It helps us recruit talented students, and it helps them learn about new areas that will be relevant to their future.”

Eduardo’s 20+ years of experience prior to Nelnet spans many jobs and locations. He worked in manufacturing, education, healthcare, and financial technology in locations like Miami, New York, Arizona, Sweden, and his home country of Brazil. After his last role at a lending startup in California, Eduardo chose to come work at Nelnet.

“I love building products, that has always been something I’ve been passionate about,” Eduardo said. “Nelnet presented me with that challenge by letting me lead the development of a brand new platform in Velocity. Being able to make a big contribution to such a large organization was extremely appealing to me.”

In addition to being passionate about his work, Eduardo explained that another reason why he chose to move to the Midwest is because it’s a great area to raise a family.

“There are different things I loved about each of the places I’ve lived, but Nebraska has made me feel like I was back home in Brazil because the people here are so nice,” Eduardo said. “I also love having a home with a backyard that my kids can play around in, and the time I spend driving to work is nothing here, compared to the other places I’ve lived.”

Even when he isn’t working, Eduardo is constantly learning new things. After moving from Brazil and learning English as a second language, he knows how important it is to keep his mind hungry for knowledge.

“Everything is always changing, so if I don’t learn new things I won’t be able to keep up,” Eduardo explained. “In the beginning of my career, with the language barrier, it was very hard to keep up. I just kept learning every day, because I knew that if I wasn’t constantly learning, I would fall behind.”

Eduardo loves learning so much that he even optimizes his commute time, as short as it is, by listening to audiobooks. He’s made his way through 28 books in the last 10 months.

If you see Eduardo around, feel free to say hi and get a feel for what the Velocity team is working on. Or, ask him about Star Wars, cars, healthcare, Sweden, or manufacturing; with Eduardo, there’s no end to what you can talk about!

Learn more about the information technology department at Nelnet.

Want to work on Eduardo’s team? Check out open IT positions at Nelnet today!

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