Search Results for: literacy

“Stereotype of ‘menial worker’ is obsolete” was the headline of a Toronto Star article that a colleague pointed me to. The article was inspired by a report released by the Ontario Literacy Council: Menial No More [pdf, 562 KB].

The discussion paper revolves around the concept that ‘low-skilled’ jobs need ‘high-skill’ ability.

the reality is that almost one million adults in Ontario do not have a high school diploma. While these adults tend to dominate many ‘low-skilled’ occupations in manufacturing, retail, food processing, and service industries, more university and college graduates are filling these positions, as these jobs now require a far greater range of skills than before. For instance, coffee shop baristas no longer just serve coffee, but troubleshoot the Wi-Fi; and hotel room attendants are now often required to operate personal digital assistants while cleaning rooms.

Too many people believe that a national digital strategy is all about infrastructure. This report brings the human element into focus: seeking to ensure that we think of how we can tailor accessible education and training programs for our most vulnerable citizens. As skill levels and expectations of jobs rise, going back to high school to obtain a diploma is usually not an option – too time-consuming or costly. For many workers, we need to find other kinds of training options.

This isn’t just a federal issue. As my colleague wrote to me, the percentages and numbers may not align with other studies, but we can agree with the Star’s conclusions: that there is enough evidence of a shift in the Ontario job market that politicians and policy makers would want to “dig deeper” and begin to think differently about how to train workers and allocate more education dollars toward that segment of “the adult population that lacks the skills to fill out an online application or compete for an entry-level job in the digital economy.”

Over the past few days, Industry Minister Christian Paradis has delivered two addresses that touch on the national digital strategy. Interestingly, I found that more was said in his remarks to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce annual general meeting last Sunday in St. John’s than in his comments yesterday at the CWTA’s Wireless Canada Technology Showcase in Ottawa. [Note: the Minister’s Wireless Showcase speech was delivered with substantial ad libs and rearranging of the order of the prepared remarks. You can watch the speech beginning at the 8min mark of the Welcoming Remarks video here.]

In Newfoundland, following a discussion of increasing R&D investment by the private sector, Minister Paradis continued with a number of points focused on the Digital Economy:

The digital economy includes everything we can or would like to do online. It includes the creation, supply and use of digital content and technologies that enable everyday life and innovation.

At the heart of the digital economy are information and communications technologies (ICTs)—everything from the personal computer in your home to the multi-purpose mobile devices that many of us can’t seem to live without. Those in the room with teenagers at home already know all too well about that.

When individuals, companies and entire economies adopt these technologies, a number of important things happen. Adoption boosts productivity, accelerates innovation and generates new products, processes and business models.

The value of these technologies is self-evident. And the federal government will do its share to promote adoption of these technologies. We will be launching a new program, announced in the last budget, to promote adoption by small businesses using community colleges as partners.

We will be tabling new legislation on copyright and privacy to ensure that Canadian businesses and individuals have the legal protections to confidently and fully engage in the digital economy. We are boosting our support to increase university capacity in key digital skills disciplines. And this fall, we will be announcing the actions we will take to release more mobile broadband spectrum, thereby ensuring a world-class communications infrastructure in Canada.

But Canada will succeed as a world-leading digital economy only if government and the private sector work together. We look to the support of Chambers of Commerce like yours to ensure that Canada has a world-class digitally skilled workforce and that businesses in all sectors of the economy make smart investments in digital technologies to improve innovation and productivity.

We need to take concrete actions now to lay the foundation for Canada to regain leadership as a digital economy.

In his Ottawa address yesterday, the digital economy was addressed through references to infrastructure and legislation to encourage innovation and adoption of information and communications technologies.

we will be moving our agenda forward this fall in Parliament with the reintroduction of legislation on copyright modernization and privacy amendments. Our legislation will give Canadians the confidence and the full protection of the law that they need to fully engage and participate in this transformative new economy.

It was in the middle of the Wireless speech that we saw more than implementation details – the vision statement:

We envision a Canada where our digital infrastructure is on the leading edge and our businesses and consumers are early adopters. Where our workers have the skills to thrive in this digital economy, and our companies are the technology manufacturers and suppliers to the world.

How do we get there? How will government leadership influence the velocity of digital literacy and adoption?

The following are excerpts from the Opening Remarks delivered by Michael Sone and Mark Goldberg at The 2011 Canadian Telecom Summit last week.

Each year, we observe that all of us continue to use various forms of communications more than ever and each year we continue to increase our raw consumption of bits, of radio spectrum. This continues to be the trend and it continues to raise substantive policy issues as service providers try to stay ahead of the demand. How do we create the right environment to incent investment? How do we ensure that spectrum is made available in a manner that creates the appropriate balance between the various stakeholders’ interests.

Carriers are reporting more Canadians subscribing to combined voice and data plans for their smartphones; and over the past year, we have seen new facilities-based service providers offering services using their multi-billion dollar investments in spectrum and network equipment, despite the challenging economic environment.

We have also seen Netflix and others offer competitive alternatives to consumers outside of the traditional media framework, challenging policy and funding formulae.

The election disrupted the release of a national digital strategy. Too many people have focused too much attention on quick fixes, without sufficient examination of the painful structural changes that are needed to drive our digital economic future. As speakers may discuss over the next few days, as Canada develops our National Strategy for the Digital Economy, we will need to examine options to look beyond the urban/rural divide – especially as we recognize that broadband access has become virtually universal, thanks to wireless and satellite. Last week’s release by Statistics Canada of the Canadian Internet Use Survey has important data to inform those responsible for Canada’s digital strategy.

It is time to look beyond supply and understand that we need to address factors that impact demand, including programs that target affordability, and digital literacy.

We need to ensure that every household has a computer – starting with households that have school aged children. Although half of Canada’s lowest income households are still without internet access, it was noteworthy that 14 out of 15 households with children under 18 have an internet connection.

But let’s face it, as a country, we need to set a national objective: Every school aged child in Canada should have access to a connected home computer. We need to drive adoption of ICTs in business and in all dealings with government, especially in improving the quality and efficiency of health care delivery.

It has been too easy to look at the supply side of telecommunications and point fingers at carriers and ISPs. It is time to turn the government’s attention toward demand.

It’s election time in Canada. I have a wish for the political parties: tell us clearly your vision to lead Canada in the 21st century digital world.

It seems to me that we need to stop the dithering around developing Digital Economy Strategies and actually put a stake in the ground.

Last week, Network World asked me to comment on what we should be looking for in the upcoming election campaign. I pointed out that we have studied communications issues enough, with the 2006 Telecom Policy Review Panel, the 2008 Competition Policy Review, together with last year’s consultation on foreign direct investment and the digital economy consultation, combined with the consultations and hearing for the recent Anti-Spam bill and the soon-to-die Copyright Bill, and finally the recent parliamentary Industry committee review of wholesale high speed Internet access.

Given all of that analysis over the past few years, it is hard to understand why we couldn’t have clear platform statements from each of the parties setting out their positions on foreign telecommunications investment, telecom and broadcast regulatory reform, copyright reform, incentives for investment in telecommunications facilities and development of digital media.

A comprehensive digital vision would include how we get connectivity to Canada’s lowest income earners, starting with ensuring all school aged children have access to computers with internet at home; how we will develop digital literacy in under-represented segments; and increased measurements, reporting and tracking to objectives.

I will be disappointed if all we hear about are current hot topics. That should be a signal that the candidates and parties lack vision and will be reactive, not proactive in their policy development.

Canadians have been waiting too long for digital policy leadership.

 

What is happening to women in leadership in Canadian telecom?

I was chatting with a colleague over the weekend and she pointed out shrinking numbers in the executive ranks of our major carriers. I decided to check out her perception. Looking at the composition of the corporate leadership teams of Canada’s biggest communications providers, one has to wonder if we have made enough progress with diversity development. There are a couple exceptions but there are other companies that seem to be regressing from previous advances.

Check out the executive listings:

• Bell
• Bell Aliant
• Cogeco
• MTS Allstream
• Rogers
• Sasktel
• Shaw
• TELUS
• Videotron

I count just 13 women among the 83 listed executive leaders  at these companies. An overwhelming preponderance of white males. 

The Globe and Mail had an article in October that discussed Canada’s poor record of women breaking out of “middle-management purgatory.” The story was part of a series worth reading entitled: Women in Power.

Research reported by Engineers Canada suggests that there are signs of a decline in the percentage of women pursuing engineering compared to men. This should be a concern to all of us in the industry.

Are there factors that inhibit increased representation by women in our schools?

Are we doing enough to ensure that the industry benefits from the rich diversity that defines Canada’s cultural mosaic? Why would companies recruit from a restricted talent pool? Is there is sufficient diversity in the secondary school programs that lead to technology fields?

As we look to drive increase digital literacy in Canada, we need to be sure that all Canadians are actively engaged to contribute to our digital future.