Digital asset mining and staking firm Foundry has started the Foundry Academy, a program to train and prepare technicians for the bitcoin mining industry. Foundry is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG), which is the parent company of CoinDesk.

• A certifiable training course from a heavyweight like Foundry will give aspiring engineers a viable alternative to official training courses from Bitmain and MicroBT, the largest manufacturers of bitcoin mining rigs.

• Bitmain is notoriously secretive, and trainees have to keep all training information confidential, as per the terms of service posted on its site. MicroBT on the other hand, offers free training and has posted training materials on YouTube.

• Foundry Academy’s one-week program in Rochester, New York, where the company is headquartered, offers courses starting with bitcoin fundamentals all the way to mining rig diagnostics and maintenance, according to a press release sent to CoinDesk.

• The Academy's first cohort was in May, and the next training is scheduled to start on Sept. 12.

• Foundry will also leverage its connections in the industry to help graduates land jobs, according to the press release.

• "After completing the Academy, I feel that I received industry training that only Foundry could provide at this level," said Quinn Carr, a student of the first cohort of the program who now works for a publicly listed bitcoin mining company.