PANNIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG
It's been a good year for Pinnguaq, the Nunavut software company that last week hosted its second Pangnirtung Code Club camp at the Pangnirtung youth centre.

Pinnguaq founder Ryan Oliver, standing, teaches at the Pangnirtung Code Club's second camp, held last week at the Pangnirtung youth centre. - photo courtesy of Pinnguaq

"We planted the seed and we want to continue to keep it going," founder Ryan Oliver said. "Just through the desire for it and to continue building capacity, and to continue building on what we started."

Graduate Talia Metuq found her calling thanks to the club, and is now studying computer animation in Vancouver.

Oliver, who was a Government of Nunavut employee, is now working on the project full-time from Toronto.

And the company's Nunavut-themed games and Inuit cultural interests have found an audience in Germany, Norway, Montreal and Quebec City.

"Germany was for GamesCom, which was about 100,000 in Cologne," he said. "And we showed off our stuff as part of the Canadian delegation. I spoke at a university in Norway as part of a conference called Arctic Modernities."

Building on a successful week-long camp in February, Oliver and the club met weekends until June, with about eight kids considered permanent fixtures. The recent camp had 15 participants. There are plans for similar camps in Iqaluit and Arviat.

"The club itself is based on a model developed by an organization called Code Club World, who provide good curriculum. We base it on a program called Scratch, which is a visual way of programming, it's drag-and-drop and is accessible to anyone of any age. The older kids mastered it quite quickly."

The group advanced mid-week into Javascript, a web standard for many games and apps people use daily.

"They're developing their own robots, digital robots, not physical robots," Oliver said. "They program them in Java and battle against each other, so the kids have this goal to beat their peers."

For the kids, it's about creating good habits that allow them to easily move to more advanced programming languages in the future.

"Technology changes incredibly quickly, and to be able to bring in that element, to keep kids in the loop," he said. "This week we're working with Oculus Rift (a virtual reality headset system), and we brought up three headsets to keep the kids moving forward."

Despite Oliver's departure from Nunavut, the company remains Nunavut-based, with a board of Nunavummiut and with services and themes focused on Nunavut and Inuit interests, he said.

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