All children need to learn computer science, but minority groups often have fewer opportunities to do so. A new five-week program in New Brunswick is helping boost knowledge among First Nations’ elementary and middle-school children.
The program, Computer Science to First Nations Schools, is being run by CyberLaunch Academy, which was founded last year to provide opportunities for children to learn coding, robotics, animation and other skills.
The current programming is being offered at Chief Harold Sappier Memorial Elementary School in Fredericton and at Natoaganeg School in Eel Ground First Nations Community on the Miramichi River.
Computer science is a field that provides unique employment opportunities, said Dr. Natalia Stakhanova, course designer and CyberLaunch Academy co-founder.
In the U.S. alone, IT-related employment will increase by 22 per cent by the year 2020, she said. The global freelancing market for IT jobs is estimated to be dozens of billions of dollars.
“Imagine how many opportunities become available to youth with skills in computer science,” she said. “They can easily find an IT-related job and they don’t even have to leave their home…”
Earlier this year CyberLaunch Academy announced another program to broaden computer science knowledge and opportunities. Called Sponsor a child in IT Training, it enables philanthropists to sponsor students from socio-economic groups under-represented in science and technology.
Sponsors pay $250 to allow a child to attend the academy’s 10-week signature course Adventure World of Computing. This course is run year-round in Fredericton’s entrepreneurial hub Planet Hatch.
Stakhanova said that during last year’s fall semester, 11 children received sponsorship. The sponsorship program is run in collaboration with the Multicultural Association of Fredericton and JEDI, the Joint Economic Development Initiative that helps First Nations’ entrepreneurs.
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“Teachers often say, ‘We have this wonderful child that’s interested in computer science, but sadly the child’s parents can’t afford additional training. This is a huge loss,” said Stakhanova.
“When that interest first arises is an important time. Later, children feel peer pressure to like certain things and behave a certain way. Then it’s hard to change behaviour. The earlier we catch them and provide role models the better.”
A mother of three, Stakhanova hones her programming on her own children. She says she’s learned that children need to start early in computer science.
“We need to engender a sense of possibility,” she said. “Parents often assume girls won’t be interested. We need to get rid of the stereotypes…If girls say, ‘This sounds interesting,’ bring them in rather than say, ‘No, dancing is for you.’
Stakhanova said the academy’s programming is growing in popularity.
“Parents are signing their kids up for the fall term already,” she said. “We have a few families who travel from Bangor in the U.S. to Fredericton every week so their kids can do the program.”
A native of Russia, Stakhanova was raised in Murmansk, a sea base and Arctic city in Russia’s north. She came to Fredericton to work at University of New Brunswick in 2012 and is currently UNB’s Innovation Research Chair in Cyber Security.
She wants to see CyberLaunch Academy across New Brunswick within five years. Eventually, she wants the group to become national.
“I want the academy to be a household name in Canada,” she said. “I want to get all kids exposed to computer science so they can acquire essential skills like computational thinking and take advantage of the many opportunities in computer science.”
