I can speak mainly to some of the barriers that exist in the technology space, because it's quite a large question. When it comes to the technology space, there's not that much awareness of the opportunities that exist in terms of pursuing a livelihood in technology in many of our communities. If we go out to our communities, we see that a lot of the youth are very comfortable with technology. They are utilizing a lot of the skills that would be useful in an employment or a career context.
In terms of having the role models to follow, there aren't very many inside of technology. If you look at where a lot of our post-secondary students entering the post-secondary system go, they tend to go where there are people they already know. We have a lot of folks who are entering programs such as social work, addictions counselling, education and nursing, where there are already people from the community who are in those roles and are succeeding. They've provided a path to follow, and they are known commodities. But when it comes to technology services, quite often the technology that comes into our communities comes in as a product you buy or a product you download from the Internet. The path for how you can actually find that career isn't as clear.
What we have found over the course of the last eight years with our own program is that we work with local indigenous training organizations, community counsellors and post-secondary institutions, that kind of thing, to try to find individuals who are interested in careers in technology. Usually, the first thing we ask is, why do you want to do this? Folks will tell us, “I've always had a computer on my desk” or “I do my own digital media programming” or “I have a little business that I offer with services for individuals.” That initial desire is what we look for. We're also looking for skills that are important in our industry, such as the ability to think critically, the ability to follow logical thought patterns and the ability to communicate. We then take that and run them through a 20-week program. Inside of that program is basically everything you need to know to be a successful entrant to the career space as a technology tester in Canada.
The program includes technical skills training, such as things you need to know and be able to do as well. It also includes professional skills, such as how to interact as a consultant with a development team that may be situated in Lisbon, Portugal, as there may be language barriers and things like that. We do try to develop that, and then we try to remove barriers by offering a guaranteed employment offer for those who successfully complete the program. We then wrap our arms around folks using that apprenticeship model and provide ongoing coaching and mentorship support for the first couple of years.
To answer your question, what we see is that, with the people who have successfully joined our company and are working away, it becomes much easier to recruit from their communities and their families, because all of a sudden there's somebody there whom they know, and maybe they would like to do what their aunty or their uncle does. Next thing you know, we have multiple members from the same community, and sometimes we have multiple members of the same family, who take subsequent training courses.
For myself, if I look at it through a policy lens, the best way to get our youth into more STEM-related studies in university is to actually have people they know who are succeeding in those career spaces, and that will help generate a pathway for building that pipeline.