These two coders are pushing to make Sudbury the programming capital of the north

A new initiative in Sudbury is aiming to connect programmers and developers, in hopes to make Sudbury the tech capital of northern Ontario.

The Sudbury CodeOp is set to launch this Thursday. Mike Daoust works for a private software firm called Advanceworx, and is one of the organizers behind the event.

"Right now, the economy is what it is," he said.

"The one sector that seems to be the glowing spot across everything is innovation technology."

And Daoust says it appears there's plenty of work available for people in that industry. He said he was recently approached by three businesses asking if he knew of any programmers looking for work.

"There is an incredible demand in this city," he said.

"It's unfortunate to see so many graduates from places like Laurentian who end up leaving the city because they can't find that work in the first place."

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Smashing the illusion that coders must leave for Toronto

Renne Higgins, who works at the City of Greater Sudbury, is also part of the group. She says programming work can be applied to almost any field, in Sudbury and beyond.

"There's kind of this illusion that when you graduate school you have to go to Toronto when you're a coder," she said.

"There's businesses everywhere. Another thing a lot of people don't consider is remote work, especially in the IT world. I have friends here that work for companies in the States and all over the world."

The first event will take place this Thursday, March 16 at the Taphouse Grill on Regent Street starting at 5:30 p.m.