In Montreal, a coder teaches the power of community

Days before she was slated to teach 50 students the basics of coding, Roberta Voulon suddenly had no place to hold the workshops.

The Montreal-based co-founder of Les Pitonneux, a “community for people learning how to code,” had arranged to use another nonprofit company’s space a couple nights a week. But at the last minute, a dispute with the landlord meant everybody in the building was looking for new office space.

Voulon’s friends helped her find a temporary meeting space, but she was still looking for something more permanent. Then she tagged along with colleagues attending an after-work event sponsored by WeWork Place Ville Marie. Her story impressed the staff so much that they offered her space, free of charge.

Voulon says she’s thrilled by the warm welcome.

“I hadn’t even heard of WeWork at that point,” she says. “They had just opened their first office here in Montreal. But now I feel so much at home, it’s hard to imagine that it hasn’t even been three weeks.”

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The connection, Voulon says, is community.

“Community building is such a big part of what WeWork is about,” she says. “And that’s also the purpose of Les Pitonneux.”

The name of her company, Voulon says, is meant to make people who might not be comfortable at a coding class feel at home.

Piton is a word for button, and our name is a slang term that means somebody who is always tapping away on a keyboard,” she says. “It’s meant to show that we don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Les Pitonneux has a variety of programs for people who want to hone their coding skills. The people who stop by the free daily get-togethers in the WeWork office run the gamut from students who are still living at home to retirees who want to challenge themselves.

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“And we have plenty of people who are entrepreneurs,” she says. “They have an idea for an app and want to get enough skills so they can build their own prototype, for example. Or they want to know enough about the tech side so that when they hire someone else, they know what they are talking about.”

The company also has other programs, including one to help people improve their coding skills enough that they can compete in the workplace. This is the money-making part of the venture. But Voulon emphasizes that the goal is the keep it affordable.

A self-professed “geek,” Voulon also mentors teenage girls as part of Technovation Challenge. She says she’s always impressed by the girls she meets.

“At that age, I don’t remember having such a packed schedule,” she says. “But they do, and still they find time to learn how to code and create a business plan. And they come out of the program so empowered.”

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That doesn’t even count the time she spends with her five-year-old daughter, a budding tech whiz who is about to start a robotics class. Together, they recently participated in a hackathon where they worked on a T-shirt that lit up with a heart-shaped pattern when the wearer gave somebody a hug.

But for the time being, Voulon is focusing on growing her business and making connections through WeWork.

“I feel really proud to be associated with WeWork,” she says. “Working here is such an awesome opportunity for us. Don’t know where we’ll be in the future, but it is definitely going to be amazing.”

Photos: Valerie Baron

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