client: Atlantic Canadian Tech Innovators & Thought Leaders date published: Jun 03, 2015 content type: Documentaries
branded content
Code Kids
Code Kids, An Impact Film Production That Helped Change What Kids Learn
A film that helped turn an idea into a movement, and reshaped how technology is taught in Atlantic Canada.
How We Helped
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A premium 46-minute broadcast documentary, an aggressive public relations impact campaign, and regional stakeholder screening packages.
Why This Mattered
In New Brunswick, a quiet but consequential gap was widening. While the global economy was being reshaped by technology, most students were growing up as consumers of digital tools, not creators of them. The tech sector needed talent. The education system needed new approaches. And young people needed opportunities to imagine themselves as builders, not just users of technology.
Code Kids was created in partnership with Hemmings House, an impact film production company working with organizations that use documentary storytelling to drive social change.
The challenge was not a lack of agreement. Leaders across business and government recognized the issue. The question was how to create change quickly in a system that rarely moves fast, and how to make possibility visible before policy followed.
The Spark
David Alston, one of Atlantic Canada’s most respected tech entrepreneurs, understood what early exposure to coding could unlock. As a teenager, learning to program had shaped his creativity and career. Watching his own children and their peers miss that same opportunity was deeply unsettling.
When Alston saw Sistema Revolution, a Hemmings House documentary about music as a catalyst for social change, something clicked. The film did not just tell a story. It created momentum. It showed what was possible elsewhere and asked a simple, powerful question. Why not here?
The Approach
Rather than starting with solutions, the work began with curiosity. Where had education systems successfully embedded coding at scale? And what could New Brunswick learn from them?
As a documentary production company, Hemmings House joined a small delegation travelling to Estonia and Finland, countries that had transformed their economies by empowering teachers to lead innovation in classrooms. Cameras followed the journey, capturing not only best practices, but uncertainty, discovery, and debate in real time.
The intent was not to produce a film after change had occurred. It was to film the journey as it unfolded, allowing the story to become part of the process itself.
If it were not for that documentary, there would be no program at all,” says Brilliant Labs executive director Jeff Willson.
Turning Story into Momentum
One interview became a turning point. In Estonia, education leaders explained that curriculum reform often moved too slowly to matter. Instead, they invested directly in passionate teachers, giving them resources and freedom to lead from the ground up.
That insight reframed the entire initiative.
Filming did not simply document these moments. It amplified them. This kind of social impact video production helped create a shared arc of discovery, accountability, and aspiration. Leaders were not being asked to imagine outcomes. They could see them.
When the Government of New Brunswick announced startup funding for what would become Brilliant Labs, the moment was captured on film. The story was no longer hypothetical. The movement had begun.
The Impact
The documentary Code Kids followed students learning to code robots, build apps, and solve real world problems. It showed teachers embracing new models and young people discovering confidence through creation.
The impact has continued to grow ever since.
The results were tangible.
Brilliant Labs launched with 19 schools in New Brunswick. Today, it supports more than 97 per cent of schools across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. It has enabled more than 1.2 million youth interactions and more than 150,000 supports for teachers, with more than 400 makerspaces now active across the region.
Alumni include scholarship winners and startup founders whose journeys began with exposure to creative technology in school.
Code Kids has enabled more than 1.2 million youth interactions and more than 150,000 supports for teachers, with more than 400 makerspaces now active across the region.
The Story Behind the Story
Beyond outcomes, Code Kids revealed something more subtle. Being filmed changed behaviour. Participants became more invested, more accountable, and more willing to lead.
“When you are capturing history on film, it taps into something human,” Alston reflects. “People want to be part of a story that matters.”
The camera became a catalyst, not by directing action, but by creating visibility and momentum. Leaders stepped forward. Teachers took risks. Students saw themselves reflected in a future they had not previously imagined.
The documentary did not just show change. It helped create the conditions for it.
Why it Worked
Code Kids succeeded because it treated story as infrastructure. The film did not arrive at the end to celebrate results. It travelled alongside uncertainty, discovery, and early commitment, helping belief form before systems caught up.
For Hemmings House, it reinforced a principle that continues to guide its work as a mission driven video production company. When passion exists, film the journey. When people can see themselves inside a story, momentum follows.