[YELLING]
SPEAKER 1: Hello, everyone.
And welcome to the home of your Kentucky state
champion Pikeville Panthers.
It's homecoming right here in Pikeville, Kentucky,
a city that has moved mountains.
SPEAKER 2: Appalachia is a special place.
I've been blessed to be able to live in the mountains.
These people take pride in the culture and the great work
ethic.
They're faith-based, believe in family.
That's what home's all about.
SPEAKER 3: I'm a third-generation coal miner.
Hi.
TSX [INAUDIBLE].
My grandfather and dad both worked in the coal mines.
It was like being in a whole other world,
like nothing else I've ever seen.
Working underground was probably one of the best experiences
I ever had.
Went to work just like any other day.
And at the end of the shift, boss
took us one by one into his office
and said, don't need you anymore.
SPEAKER 4: Lost a job I'd worked at for almost seven years.
Called my wife and told her, times are going to be tough.
SPEAKER 5: I had worked 32 years.
Suddenly, I was in a place I'd never been before.
At my age, it was pretty scary.
SPEAKER 3: The opportunities around here
was basically coal mines.
I mean if you wanted anything else,
you had to move away from home.
At that time, my wife was pregnant.
Not being able to provide for my family,
I didn't have any hope left.
SPEAKER 6: He's not desiring that you sit there,
just frustrated and broken about your circumstances.
SPEAKER 2: Three years ago, at the height of all the coal
layoffs, we just couldn't accept that we
couldn't do something else.
[CHATTER]
SPEAKER 7: People here had lost their house.
They'd lost their car.
They were working for minimum wage.
Our neighbors were suffering.
As people that had operated businesses here
for years, Lynn and I, we wanted to find something
where people could stay here in the mountains
and earn a living that was equivalent to the one they
earned in the mining industry.
SPEAKER 2: Well, let me tell you just quickly the plan.
Here's what we need to do.
SPEAKER 7: Yeah.
And so we started looking.
We investigated agriculture.
We looked at solar farms, wind farms.
But nothing really worked here in these geographically bound
mountains.
We knew that a coal miner is just
a tech worker that gets dirty.
And so our big moment came when we learned about coding.
We thought, hey, this might work.
SPEAKER 8: That way, you can see a timeline as well as--
I grew up in the area.
And I basically moved away because there was no tech
opportunity in the mountains.
I took a call from my cousin Rusty.
And he asked me, can you teach a coal miner how to code?
So I thought, how are we going to do that?
I guess I'm the only one that I know that speaks hillbilly
and JavaScript.
[CHATTER]
SPEAKER 7: We also needed someone on the creative side.
So we reached out to Payton.
He's a hometown boy.
He can live and work anywhere.
But he wanted to make a difference in this place.
SPEAKER 2: Our plan was to try to build a software development
company right here in the mountains.
We called it Bit Source.
SPEAKER 7: We thought we might get 50 applicants.
We received 950 applications for just 10 positions.
SPEAKER 3: When I got the job, I didn't know anything
about computers, didn't have an idea
whether I'd be able to do it or not.
SPEAKER 8: Here I was trying to teach them something
that they knew nothing about.
It's not fair to just give some people some false hope
if we can't follow through and make this work.
SPEAKER 2: And all the naysayers kept saying, well, you
can't train coal miners to be able to code.
But hey, these guys have been working
around tech their whole lives.
And they're tough as nails.
We can do this.
SPEAKER 8: In the beginning, I started
to teach them all the basics in how you talk with a computer.
Then we used YouTube to fill in the rest.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- In this lesson, we're going to take a look
at what does the source code--
- All of the places in Drupal 4--
- The code that makes up the format.
[END PLAYBACK]
SPEAKER 5: We just started and kept our heads down
and worked every day to get better.
SPEAKER 8: I started to get excited
that they were able to work through problems
and complete projects.
Click yes.
Good.
SPEAKER 7: Well, before we knew it,
these guys were talking in code.
SPEAKER 10: I get a 403 forbidden back.
But this ensures successful status code, nukes that.
SPEAKER 8: And now they're making
websites, web tools, apps.
And we're starting to get clients across the country.
SPEAKER 5: As we continue to improve our skills,
opportunities are coming our way.
But still, we've got a lot of mountains to climb here.
SPEAKER 3: I'm very proud that I've
been able to learn something that I can pass down to my son.
And hopefully he'll want to do it whenever he gets older.
SPEAKER 2: What I'm hoping is that these original 10 could
be the ones that help train another 10 or another 20
or another 100.
[CHEERING]
And maybe this little endeavor one day
will make it where our kids and grandkids could stay here
in this place they called home.
[MUSIC PLAYING]