Ampere scholarship honours memory of ‘the girl with the robots’

Four young Nunavummiut women are $3,000 closer to their academic aspirations after each was awarded a 2025 Danielle Moore Scholarship from the Iqaluit-based Ampere educational hub.

Established in 2022 by the Moore family in collaboration with Ampere, the scholarship reflects the passion for knowledge shared by “the girl with the robots,” as Moore was known to neighbourhood youths.

This year, 44 youths applied for the scholarship, said Ryan Oliver, Ampere Canada CEO, in a phone interview Thursday.

“Every year, it gets harder and harder to do the selection,” he said of the number of applicants.

Katelyn (Starr) MacLean of Coral Harbour, Alayna Ningeongan of Rankin Inlet, Marcia Angalik of Arviat, and Megan Kilabuk of Pangnirtung will each receive the funding to put toward their ongoing education.

MacLean is pursuing a master’s degree in educational policy studies at the University of Alberta.

“My goals are to go back to the North as a way to give back to my home community,” she said.

“What I’m focusing on is addressing systemic barriers in students’ access to education. I’d love to go back [to Nunavut] and become a policy analyst for the government or any other Inuit organizations.”

Ningeongan is pursuing a master’s degree in governance and entrepreneurship in northern and Indigenous areas through a joint program between the Arctic University of Norway and the University of Saskatchewan.

Angalik is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in the Nunavut Teacher Education program at Nunavut Arctic College.

Kilabuk is working toward her certificate in environmental technology, also at Nunavut Arctic College.

Moore, an advocate for environmental education who visited Iqaluit periodically to teach coding at Ampere’s Iqaluit Makerspace, died when her Ethiopia Airlines flight crashed in that country in March 2019 en route to Kenya, where Moore had planned to take part in the United Nations Environment Assembly.

Ampere still uses educational curricula Moore developed for Nunavummiut youth.

The Danielle Moore Scholarship is available for one or multiple applicants, depending on intake and at an amount to be determined based on need and availability.

The selection committee includes Ampere staff and members of Moore’s immediate family.

“We sit down and kind of go through each applicant,” Oliver said.

“The reality is that probably every single applicant deserves to have (a scholarship), but ultimately we have to make the choice.”