Humanizing technology

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This article was published 30/01/2020 (2138 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This year’s theme at Tech Manitoba’s annual Disrupted conference, is exploring the human side of technology.

The two-day conference that wraps up today at the RBC Convention Centre is an opportunity for a convergence of business, technology, government and educational worlds to think about how technology is impacting the world.

Charla McKenzie and Kellie Bickel are exactly the kind of people that organizers hope the conference can have an impact on.

The two first-year business administration students at University College of the North in The Pas said exposure to the bigger tech picture is important for them as they start their post-secondary education.

“We don’t feel like we are being left behind (being from the North) even if we don’t have have all the technology,” said McKenzie who was born and grew up in The Pas. “Being at a conference like this we get a sense of what is going on.”

“We know that it’s important to get prepared for the innovation and that if we don’t keep up to date with technology there is the risk of being lost,” said Bickel.

Kathy Knight, the CEO of Tech Manitoba, said there is an aspirational element to the conference but there is also a pragmatic side. As much as technology in and of itself can create amazing opportunities it will depend on how we, as humans, are able to deploy it in a way that’s healthy and beneficial to the community.

“Technology is just a tool in service of human beings,” Knight said. “As long as people understand that then it creates more opportunities for us to expand what the possibilities are.”

 

The guest speaker at the gala dinner that preceded the two day conference, Alfredo Tan, the chief digital and innovation officer at WestJet Airlines, is the poster child for the notion that the new tech worker needs to be flexible and open to learning different disciplines and being aware that just about every enterprise needs to be a tech company now.

In addition to working at WestJet, Tan also teaches at the business school at McMaster University and is doing his law degree on the weekends.

While he is focused on digital and innovation projects at WestJet, Tan also understands that regardless of an enterprise’s ability to innovate fast, it needs to nurture its workforce to successfully make the transition.

“Technology is hard but the people and cultural transformation is even harder,” he said.

Tan uses the analogy of the concept of escape velocity, the speed needed to pull away from earth’s gravitational pull. Companys need to allow their workers to be able to pull away from whatever the workplace traditions are.

“It’s hard to escape the institutional gravity of an organization or even one’s personal gravitation pull,” he said.

For Doug Louvstad, president and vice-chancellor of University College of the North, has an even larger weight to deal with, that of an entire region to change.

“It is different in the North. Our economy has traditionally been resource-based,” he said. “But the world is changing and technology is disrupting. We in the North need to be on side with that. We need to bring Northern Manitoba and its economy and people into the digital world that exists right now.”

As challenging as that would be with everything else being equal, he said Northern Manitoba still needs to overcome the hurdle of getting a proper broadband infrastructure in place. UCN is part of a multi-million project currently underway to deal with that underlying issue.

Knight believes that while people not familiar with what’s going on in Manitoba may be surprised at the tech scene here, when they do find out they are not dismissive.

“There is something interesting happening in Manitoba and it’s a confluence of all the different players contributing to the elevation of the tech sector here,” she said.

Haider Al-Saidi, the chairman of Red River College’s department of applied computer education, is part of that effort. He said there is a growing waiting list to enroll in the college’s computer department and he is always trying to increase the department’s capacity.

The college recently doubled the size of its industry-student partnership called the ACE Project where students work with entrepreneurs to help solve the problems they’re working on.

More broadly, the college is adapting on the go. Among other things, Al-Saidi said the college is starting to change the way it delivers programming away from classroom-dominated scenarios to a more mission-based approach.

It’s also currently in the process of designing a new data management and machine learning post-graduate program with the hope of doing its first intake in January 2021.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca