British Columbia

In today’s labour market, employers value social and emotional skills (SES), such as adaptability, collaboration and creativity. While there are many programs in place to help individuals develop SES, they overwhelmingly target children and youth and face limitations due to observer bias and inaccurate self-assessments. To address these gaps, Futureworx developed the Employability Skills Assessment Tool (ESAT), an online tool that supports the assessment and development of SES.

The Hecate Strait Employment Development Society (HSEDS) developed WorkLabNorth, an online career development and training platform tailored to rural and remote communities in Northwest British Columbia.

In the context of a rapidly changing world of work, Canadians need access to better and more relevant labour market information (LMI) to make informed decisions while navigating the labour market. This project, through the execution of a number of randomized control trials, tested how best to inform, empower, and engage Canadians when it comes to making decisions about work.

In recent years, young people have faced difficulties in the labour market. Pandemic lockdowns impacted school and work for most young people, alongside accelerated technological change and the increasing prevalence of gig work (characterized by short-term, on-demand, and task-based labour) have all had negative impacts on quality of work for young people. 

Cellular agriculture is a suite of technologies to grow proteins indoors, with minimal or no use of live animals. Products have the potential to be local, reliable dairy and meat alternatives with low environmental footprints and can be produced in industrial, urban and rural spaces. This project engaged people working in agriculture and food sectors, NGOs, technology developers, entrepreneurs, social science and natural science researchers, educators, and students to explore the viability of a regional cellular agriculture industry in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.