Efforts made to get more women into trade and tech careers

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This article was published 01/03/2023 (1283 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Current research shows that only five per cent of tech startups in Canada are owned by women.

Manitoba has the ignominious distinction of having the fewest number of female founders of tech companies in the country.

Joelle Foster, the CEO of North Forge Technology Exchange, knows she’s not going to change that suddenly just by the force of her own will, significant though it might be.

She’s been on a mission for a few years now to encourage more women into the space even as the success of tech companies has institutionalized the bros culture.

But just as North Forge’s young entrepreneurs are reminded that tenacity is a necessary component to sustain an idea that one believes in, tenacity is also required to break societal trends that allow men to dominate the tech world.

So that means finding all sorts of partners to work with to advance the goal of getting more women involved in all kinds of entrepreneurship.

This week, North Forge started a partnership with Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology (MITT) to make the possibility of entrepreneurship more accessible to all students, male and female. At the same time, the two organizations will collaborate on North Forge’s newest initiative, the Women’s Innovation Lab, which will officially launch later this spring.

Beverlie Stuart, the acting president and CEO of MITT, has first-hand experience about the challenges of effecting societal change.

MITT has been working for a few years purposefully attracting women into trade and technology careers. The total student population still skews male, but there is progress.

“This is all about planting the seeds,” she said.

MITT takes it responsibility to graduate employable students seriously and Stuart believes that entrepreneurship is definitely an employability bonus.

“Whether they start their own business or become intra-preneurs at another organization, what a great set of skills to have,” she said.

While MITT students may concentrate on learning very specific skills, the ethos at a place like North Forge is all about collaboration. So a skilled technician or artisan could work with an operations specialist to assemble the set of skills needed to start a successful business.

Avery Ann Gervais is that sort of person. She currently owns a successful business, Maker Mind Toys, making intricately and customized heirloom alphabet block toys.

She is a poster child for the kind of opportunities that exist for young women, especially within the ecosystem at North Forge.

“I have a guy who operates the laser printers and CNC machines during the evenings (at North Forge’s fabrication lab),” she said. “I can do the sales and contracts and come up with the ideas and put them together.”

At an event at MITT launching the partnership, Gervais and two other young North Forge entrepreneurs, Matt Olson of Prysm Manufacturing (and a handful of other businesses) and Carson Milberg of PostEd (a student engagement software), spoke about the challenges they faced.

They all said that getting the right team together was crucial.

But the point was that rarely if ever does any one person have all the skills and ability to launch a successful business on their own.

North Forge has been part of many collaborations with other post-secondary institutions, but surprisingly this is its first formal partnership with a college or university.

“MITT has the trades, they have the technology and that’s what we do,” said Foster, referring to its fabrication lab and its technology incubator program that has helped launch 263 businesses and create 1,300 jobs in three years.

The expanded downtown fabrication lab — 16,000 square feet of space with $3.5 million worth of production equipment — can become the answer to the question many makers may have about how they could ever afford to build the great idea that they might have.

Stuart said it’s not clear how many MITT students are wandering around thinking that they might like to start their own business. But she does know that 25 per cent of Canadians have thought about it.

Gurleen Kaur, a newly arrived 20-year-old electrical technician student from India, said she hasn’t made up her mind what she wants to do.

“Maybe I would try to start a business some day,” she said.

If that is what she decides to do at some point and she’s in Winnipeg, she will at least have had the benefit of the encouragement that she’ll get at MITT and the exposure to the facilities that exist at North Forge.

She may even be one of the two MITT students who are now eligible for either a membership at North Forge fabrication lab or admission to its tech incubator founders program that are part of the new North Forge/MITT partnership.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca