What We Do
Source Code Academy Canada is Canada’s first culture-focused futurist academy that prepares Black, Indigenous, and low-income, and marginalized children and youth for the future of work. As a non-profit social enterprise, we are community-based and youth-led space that offers cross-disciplinary learning in STEAM education, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy with a holistic focus on creative arts, mental health, literacy, fitness & food security, socio-emotional learning, and social justice. Rather than traditional education, we provide cross-disciplinary learning opportunities in the form of workshops, events, Learn 2 Teach-Teach 2 Learn mentorship, and year round educational programming through our decentralized innovation and entrepreneurship centres. Our programs develop underestimated children and youth through design thinking, innovation, and culturally sustaining & relevant education with our access to used and refurbished technology and equipment.
Source Code teaches digital, STEAM, financial literacy and entrepreneurship classes and workshops in urban communities in poverty through our partnerships with K-12 high priority schools and community based organizations
In 2022, as a minimum viable Impact product, our nonprofit social enterprise led events and workshops with 20 primary and secondary schools virtually and in person across GTA and Canada to reach 10,000 students. As a Scarborough-based and globally focused human accelerator, our inaugural location and next steps are to secure a physical location to establish a Source Code innovation and entrepreneurship hub in Scarborough that will support each satellite centre we co-create with urban high priority neighbourhoods to support K-12 public schools and community based organizations across the Toronto region to reach 40,000 students. At that time, when equipped, we will scale the hub and satellite model to other urban centres across Canada and beyond that are tailor made for each community and will be co-created and spearheaded in partnership with local grassroots organizations, community based organizations, and public schools that will lead each satellite. Until we secure a permanent home base, we currently operate virtually and in shared community spaces in Toronto/GTA schools and community centres through in person, online, hybrid, and immersive technology education.
Future proof: Where the Streets Meets the New Silicon Valley
Our direct response to the school to prison pipeline and the systemic barriers our communities continue to face is to future proof communities with a grassroots and culture-focused K-12 futurist academy. In partnership with community, corporate, entrepreneurs, and educational partners, we will bridge the K-12 education gap and digital divide between the Streets and the New Silicon Valley to ensure no community and no child is left behind in the digital and global innovation economy.
Disrupting Poverty with Decentralized Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centres
Our mission is to empower the next generation of global leaders from Black, Indigenous, and low-income, and marginalized communities to embrace the marketplace and Global Innovation Economy as owners, builders, and creators. We exist to democratize access to technology, STEAM education (Science, tech, engineering, arts, mathematics), financial literacy, and entrepreneurship programming for those in poverty with a holistic focus on the creative arts, mental health, literacy, fitness and food security, social emotional learning, and social justice.
Our Vision
Our vision is a world where underestimated and disenfranchised communities are at the forefront of entrepreneurship and innovation and leverage the global innovation economy to lift communities out of poverty.
We are committed to redesigning an abolitionist future where resources and opportunities are universal for marginalized communities from Kindergarten to Industry for higher education, careers, and entrepreneurial ventures in a tech-driven workforce.
Transformative Purpose
Our transformative purpose is to empower young people to elevate the social and economic fabric of their communities they call home, equip them to unlock their own solutions to real world problems and local-global challenges, and inspire them to create value for themselves and for others. The ultimate goal for the next generation is to redesign the learning experience and equip youth with the tools and supports they need to discover their own interests, enhance their knowledge, and build their own path to personal and professional success.
“The only sustainable way to design healthy and racially equitable communities is to equip and empower the most marginalized communities locally and globally with resources and opportunities to contribute and participate in shaping the Global innovation economy. Disenfranchised communities deserve every opportunity to architect their futures, change their lives and future proof their communities via culture-focused education and equitable access to tech hardware and software.”
— Curtis Carmichael, Founder & Chief Executive O.G., Source Code Academy Canada
“What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strengths of our individual identities. And in order for us to do this, we must allow each other our differences at the same time as we recognize our sameness.”
— Audre Lorde
Mentorship model
Source Code Academy Canada prepares children and youth in our community for the future of work by leveraging the strength of our tri-mentorship and Learn 2 Teach Teach 2 Learn model to bridge the educational gap and digital divide between the Streets and Silicon Valley and build sustainable bridges in communities from kindergarten to industry.
Tri-Mentorship
The Tri-mentorship model is a sustainable mentorship framework where industry professionals and post secondary students mentor and teach highschool students, highschool students mentor and teach middle school, and middle school students mentor and teach grade school students alongside our program facilitators. Through our workshops, community events, and exposure and exploration programming, at our core, we are community based and youth led space that is grounded in biomimicry. Our academy facilitators will be a combination of industry professionals, educators, community organizers, and youth leaders and more.
Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn (L2TT2L)
Modelled after our friends at the Southend Technology Center in Boston Massachusetts. L2TT2L’s approach combines historically successful community youth development practices with the learning theory of constructionism.
Crucially, our youth development practices engage youth to shape and lead the education program. The program redefines the term “teacher” for youth who often have mixed or negative feelings about their own teachers. We introduce youth to the culture of making things, to being the makers of innovative ideas and inventions, because we know that they learn best as they design and build things.
We also know that for the most learning to take place, youth must be able to explain and document their work so that others can see how they made it and can replicate it, to get and give helpful feedback to move ideas and projects forward, and to see their failures as important learning opportunities. Program evaluation will be ongoing. Youth teachers, college mentors, and staff will hold regular “circle up” sessions to consider teaching/learning issues which come up throughout the program. After each teaching session, the youth teacher team and community organization staff review the session and make improvements. Each year youth teachers and college mentors revise and complete an hour-long final reflection survey that helps our program get better.
Our Pedagogy
At Source Code Academy we use Culturally Sustaining and Relevant Pedagogy as the foundation of our organization and educational programming. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) is a theoretical model that focuses on multiple aspects of student achievement and supports students to uphold their cultural identities. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy also calls for students to develop critical perspectives that challenge societal inequalities. Gloria Ladson-Billings (the architect behind CRP) proposed three main components of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: (a) a focus on student learning and academic success, (b) developing students’ cultural competence to assist students in developing positive ethnic and social identities, and (c) supporting students’ critical consciousness or their ability to recognize and critique societal inequalities. All three components need to be utilized. Within CRP we utilize the approach of ‘Reality Pedagogy’ coined by Dr. Christopher Emdin, Hip Hop Education, anti-racist, abolitionist teaching, educational freedom and intersectional justice.
