MaVieTECHNO Directory to Promote Digital Competencies for Young Learners
On December 8th, 2017, a premier event for the new MaVieTECHNO website was held. The site is a one-stop directory for a multitude of activities and resources designed to inspire youth to develop their digital literacy and competency. The site is geared towards educational stakeholders and parents alike.
The launch event took place at the beautifully-renovated and high-tech Desjardins lab, located at the Complexe Desjardins in downtown Montreal.
A promotional video resuming MaVieTECHNO’s mission [in French]
Opportunities in the IT sector
The event kicked off with a word of welcome from Magali Demers, the project manager for the MaVieTECHNO project. She explained that Quebec is facing a labour shortage for IT professionals with close to 6500 jobs to fill in the near future. The MaVieTECHNO project is seeking to help educators and parents develop attitudes, behaviours and competencies with relation to technology in children in order to prepare them for careers in this sector. Technology is considered an increasingly important sector for the future in post-industrial economies.
The project promoters believed that there were a number of existing resources and initiatives that were working to promote technological competency development, but thought that the information could be gathered in one place to facilitate research and discovery. MaVieTECHNO was born.
MaVieTECHNO demonstrates the diversity of offerings for the promotion and development of digital literacy offered to young people. Educational stakeholders will find activities that they can use either within or outside of the classroom as well as regional resources.
The project is an initiative of MaCarrièreTECHNO and TECHNOCompétences (Comité sectoriel de main-d’œuvre en technologies de l’information et des communications) with the support of Emploi-Québec. There are close ties between the project and its partners Concertation Montréal (CMTL) and the Réseau Action TI.
Magali Demers, Project Manager for the MaVieTECHNO project addresses the participants at the launch event.
Dynamic projects promoting technology
As part of the premier, the organizers invited 2 organizations that are included within the directory of the MaVieTECHNO site in order to demonstrate the dynamic nature of initiatives in Quebec that are promoting technology.
The first guest was Cassie L. Rhéaume of Mouvement Montréalais Les filles & le code. Women continue to be largely under-represented in the technology industry. The Les filles & le code movement seeks to catalyze the efforts of actors who are promoting careers in technology through a series of activities, discussions and sharing of best practices. These can include events to initiate girls to programming in order to demystify the nature of the work. Careers in IT are generally well-remunerated, and efforts need to be deployed to diminish the apparent gender gap in this industry, thereby increasing the participation and benefits for women stemming from this important economic activity.
Cassie L. Rhéaume presents the Mouvement Montréal Les filles & le code project.
The second presentation was led by Benoît Labbé of Technopolys, a movement promoting the Technology industry and entrepreneurship in Quebec. Technopolys is piloted by businesses, universities, research centres and IT industry associations. He shared with the attendees that the IT industry is highly-competitive, and the Technopolys movement is seeking to position Quebec as an important player in technology on par with the Silicon Valleys of this world.
For Benoît Labbé, the status quo is not an option. The technology sector in Quebec is very dynamic, with world-renowned video gaming studios and software development. According to him, we need to be less humble about our accomplishments, and tout the strength of the industry here in order to attract more human capital and investment in order to grow our economic participation and ensure we are not left behind.
Benoît Labbé presents the Technopolys movement which promotes Quebec as a world-class centre for technology and encourages attendees to join the movement.
Networking opportunities
A number of the organizations that are represented within the MaVieTECHNO website were on hand for the premier of the website, which provided for lively networking and discussion both before the activity and well after the formal presentations were completed.
Before and after the launch event, the participants took part in a lively networking session.
A call to action
Congratulations to the MaVieTECHNO team for a successful premier event. As of January 15th, 2018, the website has been formally launched. If you have a resource that you would like to share through the MaVieTECHNO site, the project coordination team would be pleased to hear from you.
