Meet Team Canada

FIRST Global TEAM CANADA 2019

Team Canada of the aboriginal youth programs

Meet Team Canada

In Summer 2019, the Calgary-based FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team, Gearheads, was asked if they could form a Canadian team to represent at FIRST Global to be held in Dubai, October 2019. Some of the Gearheads agreed and several of our camp and robotics program Indigenous youth also wanted to join. IndigeSTEAM agreed to be the host organization and a combination team was built. The new team was given a special name in a naming ceremony by Storyteller Pablo Russell. The new team name was his when he was younger, I'myanistsitapikoan - Many People in One.

The team ranked 80th of 189 teams - the best ranking that Canada has had to date (3rd year of competition). After the competition, the Gearheads team relocated to Edmonton and Team I'myanistsitapikoan competed in FTC in early 2020. Two of the youth also started a team in their rural school. We are looking forward to helping develop more Indigenous youth teams.

We would like to thank everyone who has purchased something from our raffles or auctions, sponsored and/or donated to us. We made it! with your help, we had our registration paid, enough to send our younger members who had contributed to the build and extra moms as chaperones. We are very grateful for everyone's support.

See our stories at CBC online, CTV Calgary, Global National (first and second reports) and APTN. Thank you to the networks and reporting teams that are helping us tell our story. We'll see you when we get back.