Google opens community space in Kitchener
Also announces funding for tech outreach programs
KITCHENER — Since the beginning of the year, high school students from across Kitchener and Waterloo have gathered inside Google’s Canadian engineering headquarters to build robots.
On Tuesday, they demonstrated their machines in a friendly competition as part of the official opening of the Google Kitchener-Waterloo Community Space on the main floor of the building at 25 Breithaupt St. Their robots also showcased the potential of the space to bring hands-on tech education programs to the community.
The 3,932-square-foot space is open to local nonprofit groups working in science, technology, engineering and math, and on diversity in tech.
“Welcome to our community space, it is a really exciting day for us,” said Steve Woods, Google Canada’s engineering director.
Computers, big monitors, whiteboards, equipment for making robots and a demonstration field for the machines are all in the community space, the first place of its kind in Canada. Nonprofit groups can use if for meetings, seminars, training sessions and networking events.
At the official opening, Google also announced $2.1 million in funding to support technology outreach programs for school kids, women and immigrants.
The University of Waterloo’s new leadership centre for Women in Computer Science is getting $400,000.
“It is very important to have diversity in the workplace,” said Jo Atlee, a UW computer science professor and Waterloo Region’s lead for an international outreach program called Technovation Challenge.
Diverse workplaces produce more ideas and more solutions than homogenous workforces, said Atlee.
UW will also receive $200,00 from Google.org for Engineering Science Quest, the engineering department’s outreach program
for students, teachers and parents.
“The funding that we get will allow us to create an experiential learning program in the Google community space, and it is going to help youth build computational thinking, logical thinking and digital skills,” said Karim Karim, UW’s associate dean of engineering.
The biggest part of the funding — $1.5 million — goes to Actua, the country’s largest science, technology, engineering and math outreach organization. Based in Ottawa, Actua runs a national program called Codemakers, offering year-round science workshops for kids.
The community space Google opened is doing what Actua does across the country, said Jennifer Flanagan, the charity’s chief executive officer.
“As an organization that represents a network of members delivering programs in 500 communities across the country, we can personally attest to how difficult it is to find communitybased space such as this,” said Flanagan.
The funding for Actua announced Tuesday is the second gift of $1.5 million for the charity’s Codemakers program.
“With the first round we were able to engage 165,000 youth across the country for coding and digital skills programs,” said Flanagan.
Those programs included more than 30,000 Indigenous youth and 30,000 youth facing social and economic challenges, she said. The additional financial support from Google will give 85,000 more young people access to Codemakers.
The community space at Google will also be used by ComIT, a group that helps immigrants upgrade their tech skills, said Pablo Listingart, the organization’s founder.
Many immigrants from the Middle East and South America are now working for technology companies in this region after getting the qualifications through ComIT, said Listingart, who is from Argentina.
Nonprofits interested in using the community space can apply by sending an email to googlewat-community@google.com.
Google employs more than 500 people in its offices on Breithaupt Street offices and is continuing to hire