In a recent survey done on the outdoor activities of Canadians, almost 70% love the outdoors. With a majority of them coming from BC and Manitoba. Surprisingly, even these people have never heard of The Pas.
Although The Pas is a town that hardly anyone (Even local Canadians) have heard of, it is now making its mark in the startup Fintech world.
The Pas now even has it’s own small business startup centre. Which is actively promoting startup ideas (Especially in Tech and Finance) and is encouraging local talent to step up.
With recent international investments (From Brazil and the UK), Manitobans have another reason to be proud of.
When you think of Canada and startups, usually it’s Vancouver or Toronto that comes to mind. One of the biggest cities in Canada. However, to see The Pas, a small town in Manitoba to get recognized for their recent contributions, has started to create a new tech hub. Way up in Northern Canada.
A region that was previously not even on the map, is now on the verge of getting into the top 10 places for new IT talent to develop and inject new ideas in the market.
“This is wonderful news” says local youth director Kevin Bridges. “The youth here doesn’t have much choice in the type of work to look forward to. We have our high paying trade jobs but that’s pretty much it. There was never room for creativity or new ideas to flow. This all changed when Jacob founded his Fintech app. It just inspired a lot of people from the community”.
Jacob Belange of FinFunds Media founded an app that allows people in rural communities to send and receive money. This offers them another alternative to manage their finances versus just relying on banks and payday loan companies in the city of The Pas.
“Although our app is in beta mode, and we can’t reveal the name just yet, the feedback we’ve received is tremendous. We are planning a full launch in about 12 months from now but the love others have shown is amazing. Really motivational. It makes it extra special because these are people and even students from my own city of The Pas”. Jacob was a computer science student at the University of Manitoba and came up with the idea in his last year. He noticed a gap between borrowing money from banks and payday lenders and set out to bridge it.
To see this kind of buzz around Jacob’s app has really inspired the youth to start getting into coding and tech related genres. What used to be considered something to look down on by most teens and the 18-24 crowd in The Pas, is now seen as a way of creating something and moving on to bigger things. When asked about what his friends think about him Jacob replied “Kids use to make fun of me for spending so much time on the computer. However, now they see the value and what it can do for others in our community. It’s nice to be friends with people who had the opposite view of you before. We’re all the same anyways”.
“I hope this will inspire more Manitobans and Canadians in general to be more open to the Northern and rural parts of Canada. I mean there is just tremendous talent here. Kids here are hungry. They see what’s going on in the bigger cities like Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver and they want a bit of that or better yet, create it and bring it all here”. Says Kevin.
