The model.
CommunATI is a Bay Tech Ltd. initiative — Manitoba's STEM coordination layer, built from the ground up to connect programs that already exist.
CommunATI is a Bay Tech Ltd. initiative — Manitoba's STEM coordination layer, built from the ground up to connect programs that already exist.
Every Manitoba family with a kid who likes to build, code, solder, prototype, or experiment should be able to find a program for that kid inside thirty seconds. Every Manitoba STEM organization should be able to share equipment, mentors, curriculum, and audience with the orgs around them. Every funder, school, and policymaker should be able to see the whole network — who is doing what, where, for whom — in one place.
That is what CommunATI is for. It is a coordination layer, not another program. Its job is to make the other programs work better together.
CommunATI does one thing: it makes Manitoba's STEM programming findable. Member organizations list their programs. Families search them. Educators share resources. Equipment moves between organizations. Mentors get matched to programs that need them.
We don't run STEM programs ourselves. We don't compete with FIRST Robotics, Code Clubs, library coding nights, makerspaces, or science fairs. We connect them. The analogy is a transit map — every operator still runs their own service; the map makes the whole system navigable.
Free listing, optional paid tiers, shared mentor pool, equipment-lending registry, and a directory page each org can use as its public face.
Single search across every Manitoba STEM program — age band, type, location, distance — with one wait-list and one notification feed.
Workshop booking, teacher resources, sponsor placement, and a coordinated channel into the orgs already serving their students.
CommunATI is an initiative of Bay Tech Ltd., a Manitoba-incorporated company co-owned 50/50 by Shawn Brezden and Maryam. Bay Tech also operates Wired N Wireless, the retail side that supplies electronics, robotics kits, and tutorials to Manitoba builders and educators. The two products are deliberately related: Wired N Wireless puts the gear in hands, CommunATI puts the people on the map.
Bay Tech is structured to keep the coordination layer (CommunATI) financially separate from the retail side (Wired N Wireless). Member-org subscription revenue, grant funding, and sponsor support flow into CommunATI; retail revenue flows into Wired N Wireless. The two share a brand family and a back office, not a P&L.
Manitoba has more STEM programming than most provinces this size — robotics clubs in schools and libraries, FIRST Robotics teams, science fairs, university outreach, makerspaces, summer camps, Indigenous-led tech initiatives, code clubs, and a long list of one-off workshops every year. Each is well-run inside its own walls.
What's missing is the layer that sits above them — a single, neutral, navigable view of the whole network. Today a Winnipeg parent searching for "robotics for an 11-year-old" lands on whichever program happens to have the better web page, not the program that's the best fit. A rural Manitoba family often doesn't find anything at all. Organizations don't know what other organizations are doing thirty kilometres away, so equipment sits idle in one place while another org runs without it.
CommunATI is built to be that layer. Not a brand on top of the ecosystem, but the connective tissue inside it. Member orgs keep their identity, their pricing, their pedagogy, their relationship with their families. CommunATI handles the parts that only work when they're shared — discovery, scheduling, equipment, mentors, data.
Runs operations and the CommunATI platform build. Background in engineering, electronics retail (Wired N Wireless), and Manitoba small-business operations. Day-to-day responsibility for the technical platform, partnerships, member-organization onboarding, funder relationships, and the boring-but-critical pieces — incorporation, banking, hosting, security, data residency.
Why this project: the missing-coordination-layer problem is one Shawn has been bumping into for years on the retail side. Families come into Wired N Wireless asking where their kid can go to learn this stuff. The answer is usually "it depends" — and that's the problem CommunATI is built to solve.
Runs the education side. Curriculum direction, member-org education coordination, program-quality standards across the CommunATI network, relationships with schools and divisions. Background in education and program design with hands-on classroom experience.
Why this project: a coordination layer with no education leadership is just a directory. Maryam's role is to make sure CommunATI is judged the way a teacher would judge it — does this actually help a kid learn — not just the way a database would judge it.
Co-ownership: 50/50 across Bay Tech Ltd. The Operations / Education split mirrors the split in what CommunATI does.
Manitoba has fragmented STEM programming, no provincial aggregation layer, and a population distribution — concentrated Winnipeg core plus a long tail of rural and Indigenous communities — where coordination matters more than in denser provinces.
It's also the province we operate in. Bay Tech is a Manitoba company. CommunATI is built here. Not an out-of-province idea looking for a market — a Manitoba problem we keep watching from inside the room.
CommunATI launches with a founding group of Manitoba STEM organizations, school divisions, and community partners. As the network goes live, we'll publish the founding member list and partner logos here.
Logos & profiles published at launch.
Workshop & curriculum partners across Manitoba.
Grant, foundation, and corporate sponsor support.
Community-led tech and land-based STEM partners.
Want to be on this page? See For Partners or For Organizations.
CommunATI is currently a Bay Tech Ltd. initiative. As the funding architecture and member-org network develop, the long-term structure is under review — a separate nonprofit, a cooperative, or a continued Bay Tech program are all on the table. The structure will be set with input from funders, founding member orgs, and legal/tax advisors. We'll publish the decision when it's made.
Reach out and we'll walk through it in detail — funding architecture, governance, how the platform works, anything.
Reach out