Unemployed or underemployed people in the IT field have been given the opportunity to take a free course and become IT professionals.

The course is called ComIT and was created by Pablo Listingart. He started the course after coming to Canada from Argentina, where he taught something similar.

ComIT began Monday evening at Communitech in Kitchener and is offered for free due to donations, government grants and private donors such as Communitech and Google.

Listingart says some people just need an opportunity at a career.

“Once they get a job, then they can pay for other studies. They can go to University. They will contribute to the economy. But some people need that first chance.”

The course runs three evenings a week for three months and focuses on programming, web and gaming design, as well as other topics.

There are currently 17 ComIT programs being offered in 6 cities across Canada.