Online recruitment started as site for Aboriginal students, women

Thanks to an Edmonton-based Dene woman a new computer engineering game and career website is now available to youth everywhere.

Jessica Vanderberghe, a 35-year-old professional engineer, was the project lead for the game/website called EnGenious, which has been launched by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA).

EnGenious was launched online in late January, but was officially introduced via a pair of media conferences on Feb. 27, one in Calgary and one in the nation’s capital of Ottawa, which Vanderberghe attended.

Vanderberghe began working on the project this past May.
EnGenious’ original purpose was to target Aboriginal youth and females and to try to enlighten them and spark their interests in careers in engineering and geoscience. But those plans changed as time went along.

“The project grew over the past year as it was being developed,” Vanderberghe said.

EnGenious is now geared to all junior high schools students across Canada. APEGA officials are also hoping teachers find the game/website informative enough to include in their curriculums.
“I think it’s fairly unique,” Vanderberghe said. “We hope to keep it current and keep it updated.”

Anybody can go on to the website, www.engenious.ca, and open a free account. Once signed in, participants learn how engineers and geoscientists affect the world we live in.

Participants can also take part in 10 interactive games, which include setting up an environmentally friendly electricity grid, running a refinery and designing a car and seeing what happens in a test crash.

Students can also answer trivia questions and work on puzzles thanks to their problem-solving skills.

Even before the national launches, EnGenious had about 400 users signed up.

But thanks in part to the late February media conferences, APEGA officials are hoping the word spreads and considerably more people become interested in the project.

“What we’re hoping for is about 10,000 users in the first year,” Vanderberghe said.

EnGenious is only available in English right now. Vanderberghe said the goal is to have a French version launched in time for the beginning of the 2013-14 school year.

“It’s so important to be able to reach more students, especially those in rural areas,” Vanderberghe said.

APEGA currently has about 68,000 members. Only 85 of these members are Aboriginal, says Vanderberghe.

The association has set a goal of having Aboriginals represent two per cent of its membership by the year 2030.

“Using initiatives such as (EnGenious) will help in this,” Vanderberghe said.

APEGA offers numerous outreach science programs. Philip Mulder, APEGA’s director of communications, said the association targets Aboriginal youth for certain programs.

“We have some outreach initiatives directed towards Aboriginal youth in particular as Aboriginals are under-represented in professional engineering and geoscience,” he said.

Mulder said it is logical for APEGA officials to reach out to Aboriginal youth.

“We are also aware of an impending shortage of professional engineers while at the same time the Aboriginal population continues to increase,” he said. “It makes sense to us to reach out to those students who may find a career in engineering interesting and rewarding.”

Vanderberghe was born to Dene parents in Edmonton. But she was adopted by a family with German ancestry when she was just three months old. Though she grew up on a farm in northern Alberta, Edmonton is home now.

An engineering graduate from the University of Alberta, she is currently APEGA’s director of outreach and product services.