I will tell you about factors that helped Ubisoft take such strong root in Canada and that explain our company's significant growth. In 17 years, we have rather quickly created just over 3,000 jobs in a fledgling industry.
I assume that we will all tell you the same thing—that the main factor is workforce availability and skills. When Ubisoft made the gamble of coming to North America, it set up shop in Montreal because the city had a pool of artistic talent. The large number of artists was a very important factor.
Bilingualism was also a factor. For a French company that was operating on every continent and decided to set up in North America, it helped to have people who could speak French and English with ease, so that we could work with other studios.
Montreal also had a pool of telecommunications and software development companies. At the time, Softimage and Téléglobe were leading Montreal companies. The potential was good. Those were the key factors behind our decision to come to Canada.
Over time, we developed talent. In 2005, we realized that there were less junior resources than we had thought. We needed to train a lot more people to continue to grow. As a result, we built the Ubisoft campus. When I say built, I don't mean to say that we built something from scratch. We partnered with colleges and universities, so that our employees would directly provide their students with information on some of our realities, such as production areas and the multidisciplinary teamwork between artists and programming engineers. Through that initiative, we have trained over 400 new workers, 50% of whom have come to work for Ubisoft. The other half found jobs throughout the industry, either in Montreal or elsewhere in Quebec. So that helped increase the junior workforce pool, which is made up of recent college graduates.
In addition, we launched Academia, a competition where a number of universities from Canada and abroad compete, make prototypes and work in teams to build the best possible game. Ubisoft has been organizing Academia for a few years. We have also hosted immersion camps, where young people learn what goes into making a video game. The camps are also designed to show their parents that a career in video games is lucrative and promising. As Mr. Della Rocca was saying, this is not just a job, but a long-term career.
In Quebec, there is also a sectorial committee on workforce called TECHNOCompétences. That committee provides professional development, especially for small and medium-sized companies. Its goal is to provide continuous training and increase the workforce's skill level. In brief, it's a matter of never losing the edge.
Tax incentives are obviously another factor that convinced Ubisoft to set up in Canada and continue to grow here. In 1997, it was very risky to give a company a 50% tax credit on payroll. However, the challenge was accepted, and so the growth continued. Companies came to set up in Canada and Quebec. In addition, all the other provinces have followed suit by developing their own initiatives. The research and development tax credit also contributes to success and innovation in our industry. Governments have always been responsive to our company's modernization and growth projects.
The business environment is the third factor. Financial institutions and governments understand us well. We are a high-risk industry, an entertainment industry, and there is always some risk involved. We are storytellers. That's what we do. However, our industry is now fairly well understood, and that helps growth.
Finally, the last factor is the global ecosystem. That includes educational institutions, research centres that are always pushing us to take things further, the presence of many start-up studios and others.
Those are all factors that contribute to our growth.