Non-profit company helping Indigenous people train for IT jobs

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This article was published 10/01/2024 (645 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg-based ComIT has built a growing not-for-profit business teaching marginalized people in Canada information technology skills to get them into the workforce.

In the last couple of years — with the help of $1 million-plus in funding from Google Canada — it has been focused on training Indigenous people in various introductory IT fields.

But Pablo Listingart, ComIT’s founder and executive director, has found that there are all sorts of barriers for Indigenous people trying to break into IT careers that many others don’t have to face.

To find out more, it surveyed 500 Indigenous people in Canada, not all potential IT workers, and perhaps not surprisingly the survey results reveal plenty of enduring prejudices.

“What I found surprising is that people don’t like to talk about these things and prefer to sweep them under the rug,” he said.

“Companies might say they have done cultural sensitivity work, or something and that bias does not exist,” he said. “But I’ve been working with Indigenous communities for a few years now and the story I’ve been hearing is different.”

More than half of Indigenous Canadians surveyed (58.6 per cent) say they have experienced discrimination in their current workplaces and 56.2 per cent said say they have played down their Indigenous backgrounds to “fit in better at the workplace.”

“We need to address the elephant in the room,” Listingart said. “Folks not only experience challenges during the job search but once in the company they still experience issues. They still see their non-Indigenous co-workers not experiencing the same prejudice they are.”

Sherman Kong, CEO of Amik Inc., the leader in Indigenous workforce engagement and training services, understands the challenges of Indigenous IT workers.

“We do get requests for IT positions and they are hard to fill with Indigenous candidates” he said. “That continues to be a challenge.”

But Kong is a little surprised that Indigenous candidates might not want to declare that Indigenous heritage.

“That’s because there’s probably been no other time in history where there’s more of an appetite to hire Indigenous folks,” he said.

But Listingart said that even if those systemic barriers may be loosening, potential Indigenous candidates for IT positions often don’t have the same exposure to IT as others might.

Survey respondents were asked what type of careers their parents wish they would pursue and IT ranks far below more traditional fields like medicine or law.

ComIT has trained about 1,000 Indigenous people so far. Listingart has found that while only about 10 per cent of them actually want to become software developers, there are many other roles to play in the IT sector.

“One thing we try to do with our introductory courses is to show how digital skills can be tools,” he said. “In tech there are dozens of different roles even though they might all be labelled tech or IT.”

It’s also an approach used in a pilot program designed by ID Fusion, a company founded by Christian Dandeneau, a member of the Red River Métis.

Joel Dandeneau, Christian’s cousin and the head of HR at ID Fusion, said the program engaged with two recruits in three Manitoba reserves and combined hands-on technician training — like learning how to install Starlink systems — with more conventional classroom training.

The ID Fusion approach addresses another major issue raised in the ComIT survey where 52.2 per cent said having to move away from their communities and the lack of remote job opportunities were barriers to getting into the IT field.

ID Fusion’s pilot was aimed at providing skills that would be needed in the community, effectively creating jobs at home.

“The goal is to try to build capacity,” said Dandeneau. “We want to bring more awareness to young people about what the opportunities in IT are.”

There does not seem to be any debate about the fact that Indigenous people are under-represented in the field.

Listingart has seen data suggesting that about five per cent of the total Canadian workforce is engaged in IT in some capacity, but only 1.2 per cent of the total Indigenous labour force is in IT.

“There are dozens of thousands of jobs that need to be filled and the thing is if Indigenous people would have the same representation it would mean 30,000 more tech workers in Canada,” he said.

Among other things, he said employers need to be more flexible especially when it comes to remote working, something that the pandemic proved can be productive.

Kelly Fournel, the CEO of Tech Manitoba, said, it’s important that there are organizations like ComIT and ID Fusion offering a range of support for potential new Indigenous IT workers.

Another, she said is a RRC Polytech course called Pathway to IT for Indigenous Manitobans. While that course — which is still very new — is having a hard time filling its spots, it does include some of flexibilities that Listingart believes are important.

“Tech Manitoba can’t do everything,” she said. “What we also try to do is make aware to others what else is out there.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca