MINDFUEL TO DELIVER CODING AND AI TRAINING TO MORE THAN 57,000 CANADIAN STUDENTS THROUGH $2.89M CANCODE FUNDING AWARD

Every year, MindFuel helps tens of thousands of young people across Canada gain valuable skills through interactive learning, programs and workshop events

CALGARY, AB, March 20, 2025 /CNW/ - MindFuel is proud to announce its continued commitment to empowering Canadian students with essential digital skills training made possible through CanCode. MindFuel will support tens of thousands of Canadian youths to gain the critical skills necessary to succeed in the evolving digital economy, including artificial intelligence (AI), coding, and digital content development.

As part of a national CanCode initiative, now in its fourth phase, the ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry (ISED), recently announced a $39.2 million investment in 22 organizations through the CanCode fund, which is committed to providing 100,000 training opportunities for teachers and 1.5 million training opportunities for students from kindergarten to grade 12. As one of the funding recipients, MindFuel is dedicated to ensuring access to technology education, especially for underrepresented groups such as Indigenous students, girls, rural Canadians, newcomers, and at-risk youth.

"Developing an innovation mindset among Canadian youth must be a critical priority for Canada's economic future," says Cassy Weber, MindFuel CEO. "The demand for STEM skillsets is growing rapidly, and with CanCode 4.0, we're delighted to again be helping youth to develop the necessary skills needed to meaningfully contribute to Canada's technology and science futures," says Weber.  "In student feedback from our prior CanCode projects, we've witnessed a seismic positive attitudinal shift in student interest to pursue related post-secondary studies and careers, which we can attribute to successful skills and knowledge building, made possible through initiatives such as CanCode."

MindFuel's participation in CanCode 4.0 builds on its successes from previous phases. In CanCode 3.0, MindFuel delivered over 71,000 training opportunities to youth and collaborated with over 1,400 teachers across Canada. With CanCode 4.0, MindFuel will expand its programming, integrating AI-focused learning opportunities that align with the future of work and Canada's innovation economy.

All MindFuel programs, including Codingville, offer engaging digital skills training and are supported by key partnerships that amplify their impact across Canada.

MindFuel's youth innovation partner network includes:

Digital skills training platform technology partner on www.codingville.ca:

• RoboGarden

In-the-field training partners:

• Logics Academy, Ontario
• Northland School Division, Alberta
• Community Family Services of Ontario
• CryptoChicks, Ontario
• Schulich Ignite, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Alberta

"We are delighted that RoboGarden continues to be MindFuel's technology platform of choice for MindFuel's CanCode 4.0 project. The newest features in Codingville will allow students to collaborate on AI and drone related journeys, further promoting problem-solving, teamwork, and entrepreneurship skills development," says Dr. Mohamed Elhabiby, CEO of RoboGarden.

Since its launch in 2017, CanCode helped provide over 9 million coding and digital skills training opportunities to millions of Canadian students as well as over 450,000 opportunities to teachers, supporting them with the tools and increased confidence to bring digital skills into their classrooms. MindFuel is honoured to be a key contributor to this initiative, helping Canada's youth develop the skills they need to succeed in an increasingly digital world.

"Innovation will be a critical factor in achieving a durable and resilient economic future for Canada. MindFuel remains committed to paving the way for this transformation, ensuring that young Canadians are equipped with the skills to drive technological advancements and economic growth for generations to come," says Daniel Semmens, SVP of AI and Data Science at ATB Financial, and board chair of MindFuel.

About MindFuel

The MindFuel Foundation (formerly Science Alberta Foundation) is a registered charitable organization committed to creating youth innovation talent. Since 1990, we have been developing and distributing captivating, high-quality, 21st century programs that ignite a passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) innovation in K-12 and collegiate aged students. The programs are technology based, and technology infused, developed to serve both in-class and extracurricular learning. To date, MindFuel has invested over $130M into Canada's innovation ecosystem in over 1,600 communities, serving youth populations, including Indigenous students, females in STEM, economically disadvantaged youth, remote/rural students, racialized youth, and newcomers to Canada.

MindFuel also delivers eLearning programming through its wholly owned subsidiary, Wonderville Enterprises Ltd., which reaches hundreds of thousands of teachers, students, and parents each year in every province and territory, supporting over 620,000 learning sessions annually in Canada, and over 6,000,000 globally. Since inception, MindFuel has delivered over 165,000,000 learning sessions in over 190 countries with its online STEM programs.

For more information, please visit mindfuel.ca.

SOURCE The MindFuel Foundation