Four dozen girls, largely from Toronto’s inner-city Regent Park neighbourhood, converged on Google Canada’s Toronto offices in early November to see its innovative architecture and design, and engage in a “design challenge” with the help of U of T Engineering undergraduate students.
The participating girls, from Grades 7 to 10, came from U of T Engineering’s Girls’ Science & Engineering Saturday Program, and from the United Way’s Pathways to Education program.
The event was initiated by Google Canada, and U of T Engineering was very pleased to be contacted about it, said Dawn Britton, Associate Director of the Student Outreach Office.
“It’s really important for industry partners such as Google to [show] girls there are careers available to them in technology and engineering,” Britton said, adding that these types of events and experiences are exciting for all involved.
The evening began with an introduction to Google’s mission and values, and a tour of Google Toronto’s new offices. Google’s two key workplace values are healthy lifestyles and environmental friendliness, said a Google representative, which was evident in the design of the office: from the polished concrete floors to the inexpensive timberstand walling to the galvanized steel wall frames, and reclaimed seats from the old Montreal Forum.
Meeting rooms were named after cities and parks in Eastern and Western Canada, with a shower room (for employees needing to shower after bicycling to work) named “Niagara Falls.” Google has also partnered with Bullfrog for its energy needs in order to create a net zero carbon footprint, the girls were told.
Later the students were given a “digital quotient quiz” gauging their technology use and proficiency (Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, a rep said), with questions ranging from whether respondents had more than one e-address to whether they had used an “app” or played a game online in the past week.
The design challenge involved building freestanding structures out of drinking straws (three survived, though only two perfectly upright). A pizza supper and a presentation on Google’s products concluded the evening.
Maymouna Mohamed, a Grade 10 student at Jarvis Collegiate, scored 100% on the digital quotient quiz and appreciated the tour (“This office is wicked!”) and the information segment (“I didn’t know half the stuff that was presented”).
Does Maymouna think she might consider a career in engineering? Technology is “what I do all the time,” she responded. “Engineering sounds good,” especially from “what I’ve seen and learned today.”
