Toyota Backs Cross-country Youth Tour

Jennifer Flanagan (left), president and CEO, Actua and Leslie Miller (right), board member, Toyota Canada Foundation, are shown at the recent Actua Fall Maker Mobile Tour Launch in Ottawa.

Toyota Canada Foundation has announced continued support of Actua through a $200,000 investment.

Toyota’s donation will support the engagement of underserved youth across Canada and the launch of Actua’s Fall Maker Mobile tour.

The announcement was made by Leslie Miller, Toyota Canada Foundation board member, at a special workshop where local Ottawa students were given a sneak peek of the interactive innovation experiences the Maker Mobile will be bringing to youth this Fall.

Actua’s Maker Mobile is a moving maker space full of exciting technology, inspiring participants to experiment with hands-on learning and to create their own innovations.

The current Maker Mobile tour will visit 20 communities and engage 2,500 youth across Ontario and Northern Quebec through meaningful and enriching digital and STEM-related experiences. A significant priority for the project is to engage underrepresented youth audiences including girls, Indigenous youth and those with socioeconomic challenges.

Today’s youth represent Canada’s next generation of designers, engineers, and automotive technicians, and will be shaping the future of mobility.

With that understanding, the Toyota Canada Foundation focuses on supporting programs that advance science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs that go beyond textbooks and tablets. Through Actua’s Maker Mobile program, the foundation will help bring hands-on makerspace workshops into remote and indigenous communities, and inspire Canadian youth to experiment, innovate, design and prototype.

The Toyota Canada Foundation funding will also support the engagement of underrepresented youth through specialized national programs including 35,000 Indigenous youth, 10,000 girls and young women in high impact all-girls programming, and 35,000 at-risk youth.

Actua is Canada’s largest science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) youth outreach network representing 40 university and college based members.

NT5