A Willow River Ticket: At Science World, Creative Tech Experts Grapple With Recruitment & Retention

Science Salons are an opportunity for Atomic Circle members and prospective donors to gather and discuss current scientific issues with relevance in their communities. 

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Nestled in the heart of British Columbia, a stone's throw away from Prince George, is a tiny community called Willow River where 150 people live. 

The town's Wikipedia page lists its components as a general store and post-office, a volunteer fire department, a church building and a small community hall.  

Through the back door of that community hall, on nights with ticketed events, Josh Nilson would dutifully pay the entrance fee and then sneak his friends in through the back. 

"We called it the Willow River Ticket," he laughs with the intimate audience gathered at Science World to take part in the latest Atomic Circle Science Salons. 

The event, titled Creative Tech & Science World: Bridging Imagination to Industry, brought together experts of this burgeoning sector to discuss how it might shape the future of our province and asked, "How do Science World, and the new Creative Technology Gallery, fit in?" 

What unfolded was a lively conversation about provocative topics, including diversity, discrimination, access, and opportunity. 

It seems the four panelists would agree: if a Willow River Ticket exists that can reduce barriers for talented people from a wider variety of backgrounds, we need to be handing them out. And now. 

The future of the industry and BC depends on it. 

Staying Seated at the Table 

"I grew up in a mill town in the 1980s," says Sarah Nathanson of Thunderbird Entertainment Group. 

"Everyone’s dad worked at the mill. It was a good job. It's still a good job. But the economy has and will continue to change." 

She says it's important for kids to be able to come into Science World's new Creative Technology Gallery, co-presented by RBC and Beedie, and see the possibilities of the viable, lucrative, and rewarding careers available in creative tech. 

"There's no better institution in BC than Science World to expose kids to new careers." 

Panelist Jeanne-Marie Owens recalls her own journey as a rookie in the gaming industry in the early aughts. "There were very few women in leadership roles," she shares. "And those who were, were often drinking whiskey at the boy's club. That wasn't me." 

She describes carving a path for herself and landing at Phoenix Labs as their first employee in 2014, progressing through the years to become COO. 

"I don't like doing this," she says, gesturing to the microphone. "I don't love public speaking. But there are girls out there who don't know that they can do this job, and so I do it for them." 

She knows things have improved: "Today there are women at Phoenix Labs who've never been the only women in the room." 

But there's still a long way to go. 

"We talk so much about hiring when we talk about diversity in the industry, but we rarely talk about retention. What happens after you hire those folks? A new mother disappears for twelve months, and tech moves so fast, how do we make that leave safe? How do we help women stay in the industry throughout their career, and not just hire them when they're 20 and then lose them when they're 28?" 

Sarah Nathanson agrees, "We have to do better with diversity and inclusion." 

She concedes that most production studios in BC don't know their diversity population. "We need to have those hard conversations." 

Josh Nilson, who is Métis and recently helped found an Indigenous Video Games Scholarship with a value of $260,000 CAD, says those "hard conversations" aren't always possible. 

He recalls debates about measuring diversity in his own company East Side Games. 

"First of all, we need to make it a comfortable enough environment where people want to identify themselves," he explains. "Often, folks from different backgrounds might wonder, 'Why do you want to know?'" 

Josh says that he hopes telling his own story will help others share theirs. "The whole leadership team needs to be walking the talk. Change really has to start with the founders." 

At the same time, Josh and fellow panelists emphasize the need to adjust as the younger generation enters the workforce. 

"Barriers to entering tech industries that have previously existed, like getting a university degree, need to change as well,” says Jeanne-Marie.  

She and Sarah share about the work that DigiBC has done partnering with the BC government to create "micro-credential" programs with various universities that offer short, affordable, practical skills courses for people looking to up-skill, cross-train, or join the video game or animation industries in BC. 

Josh sees the value in micro-credentials for how they’ll encourage more people with different backgrounds, perhaps those constrained by time, location and finances, to pursue careers in tech.  

"Kids today just aren’t going to work how we work," he adds. "They’re going to be entrepreneurs, starting social media companies, indie games, apps. We need spaces for them like Science World where they can get hope." 

Dream, Build, Play 

You enter the new Creative Technology Gallery through a hallway lined with colourful framed images from films and TV series made in local production studios. 

Among them are framed videos featuring the best and brightest of BC's creative tech industry (Josh and Jeanne-Marie among them) sharing stories of how they forged their career pathways. 

At the end of the hallway--before you step into a whimsical child's bedroom with shifting, interactive animations--is one word: "Dream." 

"This room is meant to bring you back," says tour guide Rob Hollingsworth, Science World's Director, External Partnerships, "to a time of play and imagination. To a time when big ideas were not only safe to have, but they also seemed possible." 

In the next room, "Build," visitors literally assume the roles of creative technologists, using interactive exhibits to take on positions like Artistic Director, Environment Designer, and Character Artist. 

Tom Cummins, Director of Exhibits at Science World, explains how this huge investment in a site-specific piece could reach across BC, to the small towns like the one Josh Nilson came from. 

"We're building out our web presence to showcase the heroes of creative tech in our outreach programs in rural and remote regions. With so much community interest, there's a lot of potential for the gallery to have province-wide impact." 

The reach into smaller towns is important to Josh. "It's like there are two BCs," he says. "The kids outside the cities deserve the same opportunities as the kids inside. The next Club Penguin could come out of Prince Rupert with the right support." 

The night ends with a final question: What would this gallery have meant to you as a young learner interested in tech? 

"I know one thing," Josh says. "I'd be getting my friends in with the Willow River Ticket so they could see people like them on these walls." 

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