MINDFUEL RECEIVES $398,400 FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA'S COMMUNITY SERVICES RECOVERY FUND IN SUPPORT OF YOUTH INNOVATION

As a Transformer funding partner, the Government of Canada and the Canadian Red Cross support MindFuel's mission to provide access to innovation skills and knowledge development to underrepresented youth

CALGARY, AB, Jan. 10, 2024 /CNW/ - MindFuel is pleased to announce approximately $400,000 in funding awarded by the Government of Canada's Community Services Recovery Fund disbursed through the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) to help scale its youth innovation programming.

Each year, MindFuel makes a vital difference in providing youth with the skills, confidence, and learning environments to foster STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and innovation knowledge development. MindFuel serves more than 1,600 communities across the country and has invested more than $120 million since 1990 to help prepare youth to be active contributors to Canada's innovation ecosystem.

This funding will help MindFuel to further expand Connect2Innovate (C2I), a technology-based collaboration platform, and, through C2I, MindFuel (MF) will be able to scale access to innovation programming geared to Canada's equity deserving youth, ages 15-29.

Through C2I: 

• MindFuel will be able to scale its innovation programming to more youth in AB, BC, YT, NWT, SK, MB, and southern ON.
• From 2023 to 2028, 10,000 equity deserving youth will gain access to the innovation ecosystem to engage in team-based design-thinking & prototyping challenges in biotech, healthtech, cleantech, agritech and envirotech. Equity deserving youth will build mentor connections with industry to further advance their innovations.
• MindFuel will continue to follow its programming enrollment guidelines through an equity deserving lens: 50% female, 5% Indigenous, 30% newcomer / racialized / rural / economically disadvantaged. 

"MindFuel recognizes the importance of investing in future-ready youth and, through our partnership with the CRC, we'll be able to support Canada's innovation agenda by supporting youth aged 15 to 25 to gain access to the tools of innovation, noting this represents 15 per cent of our total population," says Cassy Weber, CEO of MindFuel. "Based on the positive impacts from our 10 year study, we know that making the innovation space more accessible to Canada's youth talent is critical to creating a future-ready workforce, able to take on the challenges of economic diversification and global competitiveness."

The funding from the Government of Canada disbursed through Canadian Red Cross to build Connect2Innovate will help to enhance accessibility to programs geared to underrepresented youth, including female, Indigenous, and economically disadvantaged youth through MindFuel's Tech Futures Challenge (TFC) and Founders Fundamentals.

"This funding from the Government of Canada through the Canadian Red Cross is truly transformational," says Weber.  "And they join our current and past Transformer partners like Cenovus Energy, Future Skills Centre, Alberta Innovates Technology Futures, and others, in terms of their commitment to supporting development of youth innovation talent."

"I am continually impressed by the passion, dedication, and creativity of community service organizations, like MindFuel. I am equally proud the Government of Canada has supported their important work through the Community Services Recovery Fund. By investing in these organizations and their projects we can help to create a more just and equitable society, where everyone has opportunities to succeed. I look forward to seeing the positive impact of this investment in Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon Territories, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and southern Ontario over the years to come."
– Jenna Sudds, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development

The TFC model of success is based on learning through mentorship, collaboration, and experiential learning. TFC has been developed over ten years, and moves youth from foundational skills and knowledge development through to ideation and prototyping, through workshops, project-based learning, mentor network development, peer-based connections, and facilitation of project development through subject matter experts. Areas of focus in TFC include digital literacy and coding, robotics, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and computational solutioning.

MindFuel's 2024 Tech Futures Challenge cycle begins in January. Registration is open now. For more information about registration, the TFC schedule, and about past participants, visit the Tech Futures Challenge page.

Funded by the Government of Canada's Community Services Recovery Fund

About MindFuel

The MindFuel Foundation is a registered charitable organization committed to creating young innovators. 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 students of all ages. The programs are technology based and technology infused, developed to serve both in-class and extracurricular learning. To date, MindFuel has invested over $120M into Canada's innovation ecosystem in over 1,600 communities. It serves underrepresented youth populations, including Indigenous students, girls in STEM, the economically disadvantaged, remote/rural students, 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 600,000 learning sessions annually in Canada, and over 6,000,000 globally. Since inception, MindFuel has delivered over 147,000,000 learning sessions in over 190 countries with its online STEM programs.

For more information on programming, please visit mindfuel.ca.

About the Community Services Recovery Fund

The Community Services Recovery Fund is a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits and Indigenous governing bodies, as they adapt and modernize their organizations.

The Community Services Recovery Fund is being delivered through three National Funders - Canadian Red Cross, Community Foundations of Canada, and United Way Centraide Canada.

SOURCE The MindFuel Foundation

Cassy Weber, CEO, The MindFuel Foundation, [email protected], 403-220-0077 x205