We are currently looking for a bright, entrepreneurial, tech-savvy individual with overwhelming initiative to help us lead our Girls & Kids Learning Code programs to Markham. This is a part-time, volunteer position. Our Chapter Leads earn an honorarium as a thank you for their contribution.

Empower Canadian youth to learn beginner-friendly technical skills, build your network of technical and tech-savvy people in your city, gain experience planning large and small workshops and events, and earn a bit of money supporting a charitable cause!

If you’re interested in joining the Canada Learning Code team as a Chapter Lead, please get in touch with us via the application below.

About Canada Learning Code

At Canada Learning Code, we believe that digital skills are tools of empowerment. Our goal is to ensure that all Canadians – particularly women, girls, people with disabilities, Indigenous youth and newcomers – who have been historically underrepresented in the sector are given equal opportunity to build our future. We are champions for coding education in Canada, driving results through program design and delivery, strategic industry and public partnerships, educator training, research, advocacy and awareness. We aim to empower Canadians in every province and territory to develop computational thinking abilities, through code and other digital skills, equipping them to become creators – not just consumers – of technology. We believe that diversity is Canada’s strength and everyone should be given equal opportunity to learn critical 21st century skills. Our goal is to level the educational playing field to drive innovation.

Canada Learning Code is an Equal Opportunity Employer and values diversity and inclusion within all our teams (employees and volunteers alike). We are committed to continuing to diversify our Teams across Canada. We strongly encourage applications from underrepresented and minority groups.

We are looking for a dedicated and passionate person to join our team as a Girls & Kids Learning Code Chapter Lead in Markham

About Girls & Kids Learning Code Our Girls Learning Code program offers female-identified, trans, and non-binary youth ages 6-12 hands-on experiences designed to inspire them to see technology in a whole new light – as a medium for self-expression, and as a means for changing the world. Through Girls Learning Code, we aim to build the pipeline of female-identified, trans, and non-binary youth who want to change the world with technology for our future generations.

Our Kids Learning Code program offers youth ages 3-12 hands-on experiences designed to inspire them to see technology in a whole new light – as a medium for self-expression, and as a means for changing the world.

From workshops, camps and tech days, our youth experiences are especially popular and successful because of the 4:1 ratio of learners to mentors at every experience, which is only possible because of overwhelming support from the technology and startup communities in the cities where we operate.

Girls & Kids Learning Code Experiences are a great opportunity to grow your learner community and pipeline. The issues in the lack of diversity in tech are largely systemic. The earlier we can set the tone and standard of healthy technology cultures and shape fundamental beliefs and expectations - the closer we get to solving this problem.

Technology is everywhere and it’s not going anywhere. Teaching girls to code is about more than just helping children understand the technology they are using and secure employment in the future. At a fundamental level it improves problem-solving and thinking skills.

We think it’s important for youth to learn to code for a few reasons:

• Coding is a superpower. Learning to code let’s kids build -- not just consume the technology around them like video games, websites, robots and more.
• Coding helps kids develop new ways of thinking and foster problem-solving techniques that gives kids a competitive advantage when applying to colleges, internships or jobs - they are valuable skills that are in high demand.
• Coding helps kids understand the world around them better. If we teach biology and mathematics in order to understand the world around them, then knowing the basics of how computers communicate - and how to engage with them -should be a given.
• Coding can help change the world empower kids to use technology as a creative tool to build solutions for problems or challenges people face everyday.
• Coding is fun! We want kids to experience the satisfaction and thrill of building something of their very own.

Would you like to:

• Help kids learn beginner-friendly technical skills in a social and collaborative way?
• Build your network of technical and tech-savvy people in your city?
• Gain experience in running large and small workshops and events?
• Earn honorariums by supporting a charity organization doing cool work?

If you answered yes to the above questions, you may be who we’re looking for!

Responsibilities: Organize one workshop per month

Guidelines:

• Capacity: 20 participants or more
• A 4:1 ratio of learners-to-mentors is required at every experience (we call
• these talented volunteers “mentors”)
• Experiences usually take place on Saturdays or Sundays or evenings and are BYOL (“bring your own laptop”)

Tasks:

• Find a talented Lead Instructor for each workshop from the local tech community and select a topic from the Canada Learning Code content library
• Choose a date and venue for each experience
• Act as a Facilitator at all Youth experiences
• Communicate event details to the HQ team so that we can launch registration and communicate plans via social media
• Capture each experience by doing things like writing blog posts, tweeting, taking photos, etc. to document and build awareness
• Coordinate volunteers, catering, a PA system, projectors and power and other on-site day of logistics
• Manage a local budget, learner goals and targets

What We’ll Take Care of For You: Running workshops is a lot of work – that’s something we’ve learned over the past year. In order to help you make your city’s Canada Learning Code Chapter a success, we’ll be supporting our Chapter Leads in several important ways. We take care of:

• Developing content – we’ve already developed dozens of workshops for you to choose from, and we’re developing new workshops all of the time
• Full administrative, registration and accounting support – this stuff is time-consuming and a bit of a pain, so we’ll be managing it centrally.
• PR and Marketing support – social media, email newsletters, press outreach, and more.
• Community Development support – to maintain a 4:1 ratio of students-to-instructors at workshops in your city, you’re going to need the support of your tech community. We can help with that.
• Fundraising – while we’ll be handling major sponsorships centrally and we’ll support you as you seek local sponsorships and partnerships as well as providing internal grants and funding opportunities
• Ongoing support from the Canada Learning Code’s HQ team – we’re here to help as your grow your chapter from just an idea into reality.

What We Expect from Girls & Kids Learning Code Chapter Leads:

Accountability It is important that you work well with your local community to make sure all invested parties – from instructors to sponsors to attendees – have a great experience with Canada Learning Code education experiences. As a Canada Learning Code Chapter Lead, you are responsible for the success of each event. Canada Learning Code will collect data from attendees, instructors, mentors and other stakeholders after each event you facilitate, and will periodically review your performance.

Communicating the Canada Learning Code Message As a Canada Learning Code Chapter Lead, it is incredibly important that you understand and communicate the organization and program messages and value proposition at each event you facilitate.

Representing Canada Learning Code to the Local Community As a Canada Learning Code Chapter Lead, you are the public face of Canada Learning Code in your city. You will need to understand how to work with and what to expect from the local media.

Ensuring Event Logistics Are Coordinated Properly Event planning and logistics are the responsibility of the Canada Learning Code Chapter Lead. This includes everything from selecting a topic, finding a Lead Instructor, choosing a date and venue, coordinating talented volunteers to achieve a 4:1 ratio of students-to-instructors, ordering catering, communicating event details to the Toronto team so that we can launch registration, etc. The Toronto team will provide ancillary support in making sure events are coordinated and executed properly.

Managing the Event’s Tone One of the most important responsibilities of a Canada Learning Code Chapter Lead is maintaining the tone of the event. Creating a vibrant & positive atmosphere where individuals can learn new tech-related skills in a beginner-friendly, social and collaborative way is really the magic that makes Canada Learning Code programs successful.

In addition to that, we’re looking for individuals who are:

• Entrepreneurial – this is an ideal part-time job for an up-and coming entrepreneur or full-time freelancer!
• Enthusiastic and motivating
• Empathetic and supportive, thoughtful and able to build strong relationships
• Friendly and supportive
• Results-oriented
• Tech-savvy with an interest in learning to code