The IT Nerd

The Honourable Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism, today announced funding to the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) aspart of the Government of Canada’s Student Work Integrated Learning Program to support matching business and technology students with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The Career Ready program will match current post-secondary students who are studying in the areas of Business Technology Management (BTM), Computer Science, Computer Systems Technology, Computer Engineering or alike programs with SME’s across Canada over the next five years.

Career Ready was announced at a launch event at D2L in Kitchener, hosting students from secondary educational institutions and business and education leaders. The Career Ready program is using the innovative Magnet Today matching technology platform, a technology that was developed and incubated at Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone.

The program provides up to 50% (to a maximum of $5,000) of a work term student’s pay in wage subsidies to employers. Employers that hire students from underrepresented groups including women in STEM, indigenous students, recent immigrants, persons with disabilities, and first-year students may also qualify for additional funding (up to 70% or $7,000).

ITAC works closely with the work term department staff at the post-secondary institutions to help students and employers bridge the school-to-work transition and have formed a consortium in Ontario with Ryerson University, Seneca College, Centennial College and Sheridan College. Further consortium partners will be pursued in 2018. The Career Ready program will also be launched in British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in 2018.

Today’s federal budget addresses many of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector’s core recommendations to make Canada’s Innovation Agenda a success, according to the Information Technology Association of Canada, the voice of Canada’s ICT sector.

“Knowing the federal Government’s plan for this to be an Innovation Agenda budget, it does contain a number of important measures that address our nation’s technology skills gap, bolster our ability to help innovative businesses grow and scale while strengthening Canada’s ability compete digitally on the world stage,”says Robert Watson, President and CEO of ITAC.

“The devil is in the details though, so ITAC will continue to review the budget, discuss implementation with departments, distill down industry’s perspective and continue this dialogue,” Watson says.

“We are happy to see that the Government will create Innovation Canada to reduce confusion and make it easier for innovators to understand and access Government-led innovation support programs. This platform will look at six innovation opportunities and we are very pleased to see digital industries is a part of it,” adds Watson.

ITAC is equally as pleased to see the Government has announced $225 million over four years to establish a new organization to support skills development and measurement in Canada. This new organization will provide the knowledge base needed to address Canada’s ICT skills gap. This was a central recommendation in ITAC’s 2017 pre-budget submission.

ITAC also applauds the additional investments the Government will make: to help innovative companies grow through strategic procurement, providing up to $50 million to launch a new procurement program called Innovation Solutions Canada; encourage the development of Smart Cities, with $300M allocated to the adoption of new and innovative approaches to city building; growing Canada’s advantage in Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a $125 million to launch a Pan-Canadian AI Strategy for research and talent; and $1.26 billion dollars over five years for a Strategic Innovation Fund aimed at consolidating and simplifying existing business innovation programming.

There are some initiatives outlined in the budget that ITAC looks forward to learning more about. In particular, the new Impact Canada Fund that aims to help the President of Treasury Board’s mandate.  A modern digital government is a critical success factor in building our digital nation and funds to help kick-start digital service experimentation across departments is welcomed.

More information from ITAC on their perspective of Budget 2017 can be found here [Warning: PDF].

The second Federal Liberal budget also known as the “Innovation Agenda” budget will be tabled on March 22, 2017 and ITAC, the voice of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in Canada will provide insight on its impact.

For the past year ITAC has advocated its “ICT Fundamentals for Canada’s Innovation Agenda” – underscoring the four key focus areas and publishing innovation papers on each that outline the substantive policy changes and investments needed for each area:

1. ITAC on Digital Governmentoutlines key recommendations to support the Government of Canada’s transformation, modernization and digitization strategies – underscoring its importance for not only engaging citizens and businesses but also staying competitive on the world stage.
2. ITAC on Talent and Skills Developmentprovides solutions on how to address Canada’s skills gap domestically while attracting the skills needed globally.
3. ITAC on Trade and Competitiveness,looks at recommendations to foster competitiveness on a global scale and increase access to export markets to support digital commerce for Canadian businesses.
4. ITAC on Modern Digital Economyframes recommendations for Canadians to realize the economic, social and democratic benefits of a digital economy, Canada must work harder to create a word-leading digital infrastructure.

ITAC looks forward to reviewing the 2017 Federal Budget and providing its perspective as it aligns to its advocacy efforts, ICT sector priorities and its ability to effectively kick-start Canada’s Innovation Agenda.

Shared Services Canada (SSC) will soon embark on a series of consultations that support internal efforts to improve and strengthen its way forward. The Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) encourages and supports SSC in receiving industry feedback on the IT Transformation Plan that is designed to outline how the department will carry out its mandate to deliver IT services across the Government of Canada.

The IT Transformation plan is a follow-on to the Strategic IT Plan released by Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) last month, who also tabled its Plan as draft with a request for feedback. Both documents are a result of the review with the Public Accounts Committee conducted on Information Technology Shared Services chapter within the Auditor General’s Fall 2015 Report.

Outside of encouraging membership to respond directly through the online mechanisms that will soon launch, ITAC is also working on leadership roundtables to bring best practices to the forefront. Additionally, ITAC will also consolidate member feedback and present formalized comments to SSC to support the final development of the IT Transformation Plan. ITAC is also doing the same for the Strategic IT Plan in an effort to truly shape and strengthen the government-wide approach to IT transformation and modernization.

The engagement around SSC’s IT Transformation Plan is just one of a series of reviews underway to inform the Government of Canadas way forward for the delivery of modernized IT infrastructure services.

The Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) has announced the first in a series of five innovation papers that underscore the challenges faced by the information communications technology (ICT) sector. ICT is the fuel that ignites Canada’s Innovation Agenda and as such ITAC recommends fundamental policy changes and investments in four core areas.

In the first Innovation Paper released today, ITAC summarizes the four papers that will soon follow. In this paper ITAC also highlights that meaningful, bold changes are needed, such as:

•  A willingness by government to make substantive policy changes;
• A whole-of-government approach to innovation program and policy development;
• Involvement from the tech sector throughout; and
• A circle back with experienced ICT leaders to table plans before they become final.

The focus of the upcoming Innovation Papers will be:

1. Modern Digital Economy Innovation Paper (September 2016)
2. Competitiveness and Trade Innovation Paper (September 2016)
3. Modern Digital Government Innovation Paper (October 2016)
4. Talent and Skills Development Innovation Paper (November 2016)

To further support, ITAC will showcase the thought leadership behind each innovation paper through a policy debate in mid-November.  This event will provide an opportunity for policy makers to hear perspectives from industry, academia, and other subject matter experts on what they would like to see from Canada’s Innovation Agenda.

The Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) was invited by the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) to join the Canadian delegation from June 21-23, 2016 at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 2016 Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy: Innovation, Growth and Social Prosperity in Cancun, Mexico along with participating in the first Innovation Roundtable for Canadian industry delegates to review ISED’s vision.

ITAC was pleased to participate in the first ever Innovation Roundtable hosted by The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) to review six areas of action:  promoting an entrepreneurial and creative society; supporting global science excellence; building world-leading clusters and partnerships; growing companies and accelerating clean growth; competing in a digital world; and improving ease of doing business.

ITAC will be supporting the Innovation Agenda consultations over the summer through collaboration with ISEDs innovation leaders while continuing to be a strong partner throughout the consultations and ensuring the tech sector has a voice during consultations and the development of Canada’s Innovation Agenda. Minister Bains was quoted in Mexico saying the race is on and ITAC completely agrees! This is the tech sector’s time to work with government to build a digital nation.

As Canada’s national ICT business association, the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) champions the development of a robust and sustainable digital economy in Canada. A vital connection between business and government, we provide our members with the advocacy, networking and professional development services that help them to thrive nationally and compete globally. A prominent advocate for the expansion of Canada’s innovative capacity, ITAC encourages technology adoption to capitalize on productivity and performance opportunities across all sectors.

ITAC – The Information Technology Association of Canada has just launched the Women on Boards Registry. This is Canada’s first registry profiling 33 Board-ready, Technology experienced women who are qualified and interested in board of directors appointment.

ITAC commissioned a white paper to better understand the dynamics of the gender diversity board debate.  The 2013 white paper written by Karen Wensley, Gender Diversity of Boards of Directors of Canadian ICT Companies  cited a few obstacles:  CEO’s and Nominating Committees didn’t have many women in their leaderships’ network and they didn’t know where to look to find them.

In December 2015, there were 37 (9.2%) women directors on the TSX Tech 60 Company Boards which is less than 10% of total Board seats; 11 were from the US and 26 (6.5%) were from Canada. The ITAC Women on Boards Registry effectively doubles the number of women directors available in Canada to serve on public ICT companies, or any other Canadian company needing technology savvy board members.

The Women on Boards Registry is available to all Canadian organizations who want to play a role in improving the gender imbalance in Canada’s boardrooms.  Additional educational Board Discovery Days are being planned in other markets in 2016/2017.

In its January 2016 white paper Online Reputation: What are they saying about me?, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) invited a conversation on the reputational challenges that emerge as more social interactions take place online and content that would have historically been confined to offline archives has become easily searchable.

The OPC discussion paper looks at the issue of online reputation and personal privacy, and sets out the challenges faced by individuals whose online information has a negative impact on their reputation.  The OPC is seeking further stakeholder feedback, with the ultimate aim of putting forth a position on solutions.

While this is a substantive issue that will require inputs from a broad range of stakeholders, the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) is pleased to provide a technology industry perspective on how the government can better use existing tools and work with the technology industry and other stakeholders to help Canadians to protect their online reputation.

The ITAC Response Paper [Warning: PDF] is available now.