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Community of Practice

Our Digital Infrastructure

Creating an integrated pan-Canadian network of diverse partners and stakeholders across the skills development and training ecosystem

There are significant challenges in the Canadian skills and training ecosystem. These include fragmentation, lack of information, and challenges in navigating complex pathways to support. 

Part of the Future Skills Centre’s mandate is to share and encourage adoption of effective practices across this ecosystem. We want to promote inclusive career development and help Canadians understand the skills they need and how to get them.

Magnet, a digital innovation platform, will support the Future Skills Centre in achieving these goals through a new Community of Practice and community content feed. These will connect people and organizations across the skills ecosystem with information and ideas, as well as innovative services and tools. We will create opportunities for sharing and collaboration through Magnet’s evolving and growing network of networks.

The Future Skills Centre’s Community of Practice, powered by Magnet, will bring a unique opportunity to community and industry leaders, experts, and practitioners in the skills development and training ecosystem to collaborate and share resources with their peers. Our goal is to encourage collaboration and help individuals and organizations recognize synergies and opportunities to work together across sectors, geography, and industry.

A digital innovation platform for the Future Skills Centre

Magnet and its technology partners already digitally connect a wide variety of users through its platform: over 1 million Canadians, 500 000 employers, 85 post-secondary institutions, and 330 community and industry partners are a part of Magnet — connecting to opportunities, learning content, and to each other.

Illustration of icons connected with network lines.
By leveraging Magnet’s growing connected ecosystem of technology platforms and partnerships, the Future Skills Centre’s Community of Practice will:
1

Collect, aggregate, and disseminate critical data

This data will support informed decision-making for government, community and industry organizations, individuals, and employers across the ecosystem

2

Encourage our community to access the Future Skills Centre’s knowledge, share, and collaborate

Users from across Canada will have access to new tools, collaboration opportunities, and content related to topics of interest on the Centre’s activities, projects, research, and findings

3

Provide a technology infrastructure for sharing and testing innovative practices and tools

This platform will provide a unique opportunity to strengthen the skills and training ecosystem in diverse communities across Canada, engaging participants from multiple sectors across industry, economic development organizations, individuals, and employers

A focus on collaboration and sharing

The Community of Practice is one of the community outreach activities actively underway at the Future Skills Centre as we continue to engage with diverse partners and stakeholders across the skills development and training ecosystem.

These activities will support us in engaging in extensive and broad consultation and knowledge sharing, while reducing fragmentation and duplication, and will provide opportunities for continuous updating of content, best practices, tools, and knowledge from across Canada through crowdsourcing.

Magnet’s unique, cross-Canada digital innovation platform augments an extensive network of incubators and labs that already constitute our innovation support system (including I-INC, Spark Niagara, MaRS and more), providing Canada with a truly connected ecosystem in skills development and training.

Featured Content

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Bridging the Digital Skills Gap: Alternative Pathways

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Thinking Twice About Technology and the Future of Work

Technology is being used to change power balances in workplaces and to perpetuate long-standing precarious employment relationships, Jim Stanford argues. But the exploitative practices of the gig economy reflect deliberate choices, rather than the inevitable onward march of technology, and creating better jobs also lies within our power.
The Future Skills Centre is a forward-thinking centre for research and collaboration dedicated to preparing Canadians for employment success and meeting the emerging talent needs of employers. As a pan-Canadian community, we bring together experts and organizations across sectors to rigorously identify, assess, and share innovative approaches to develop the skills and work environments to drive prosperity and inclusion.