Office of Public Affairs Acadia University Wolfville, Nova Scotia B0P 1X0 (902) 585-1362 Fax (902) 585-1072 News Release For Release: November 3, 2000

Canadian Universities must play critical role in preparing the workforce for competitive Internet economy

(Wolfville, NS) – At today's Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable meeting in Toronto, Dr. Kelvin Ogilvie, chair of the Roundtable’s Talent Pool Team and President of Acadia University, will share a report detailing how Canadian universities are responding to a call for high tech workers with the skills required to meet the demands of the Internet economy.

Canadian businesses have been speaking up about what they need to fully utilise the Internet and information technologies as innovative business tools. The Roundtable’s e-Business Acceleration Team white paper, released October 12, 2000, recognised that Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises are not leveraging new technologies to stay competitive in the Internet economy. The four challenges to accelerating e-business in Canada were identified as education and information dissemination, lack of strategic business resources, costs and security.

To help meet the growing demand for skills, Canadian universities are presently offering a broad range of e-commerce-related programs and research opportunities. “The Roundtable will continue to push for heightened awareness of the critical role that education at all levels plays in preparing Canadians for productive and satisfying lives in the new economy,” said Dr. Ogilvie.

The “e-team” report states that there are presently ten universities that offer substantial programs or house centres focussed specially on e-commerce. In addition to these specific programs and research institutes, there are a number of programs and institutes that are related to e-commerce, most relating to information technology infrastructure in the form of Computer Science and Computer and Electrical Engineering Programs.

“Universities play an essential role in preparing Canadians to meet the challenge of the e-world,” said Dr. Ogilvie. “The modern university must provide a quality education - in the finest of liberal education experience, but it must also provide its students with the capability and skills to enter the real world and to lead and change that world.  The university must ensure that its graduates have advanced communication skills, enhanced entrepreneurial skills, be capable of working together in groups, have advanced problem-solving skills and that they use technology instinctively and will continuously adapt to an ever-changing world.“

The Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable is a private sector led initiative formed in 1999 by Boston Consulting Group, Nortel Networks and Industry Canada, to develop a strategy for accelerating Canada’s participation in the Internet economy. After the January 2000 release of its report Fast-Forward: Accelerating Canada’s Leadership in the Internet Economy, the roundtable devised the Talent Pool e-Team led by Dr. Kelvin Ogilvie, with a mandate to examine the expansion of the e-business talent pool in Canada through the acceleration of skills training and retraining.

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For more information, contact:
Sheri Woodland
Communications Officer
Acadia University
(902) 585-1362

or visit the e-Team Canada Web site at http://e-com.ic.gc.ca/eteam/
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Published by: The Office of Public Affairs Last revised: November 3,  2000 URL: http://www.acadiau.ca/whatsnew/newsrelease/2000/RoundTableMtg.html