The TeKnoWave Program - Building Critical Aboriginal IT Capacity: Canada's First National Training Program to Develop Tomorrow's Aboriginal Leaders Today

Abstract:

TeKnoWave is Canada's first national training program to build Aboriginal Capacity in the Information Technologies. Its partners include Aboriginal leaders, the private and public sectors and local Aboriginal community groups. The program directly responds to the national crisis, recognized by business and government leaders, to increase the participation of Aboriginal peoples in the Canadian workforce. This is a challenge faced in many other countries.

Based on the successful models developed by Willis College, TeKnoWave is a culturally adapted program which involves:

• Input from the private sector to define local employment needs;
• Global industrial certification;
• Ministry of Education diplomas;
• Transferable credits for continued university education at the undergraduate level;
• Mandatory Community Internship Programming which sees students developing IT applications for their communities as a by-product of their studies;
• Development of role models within the youth community;
• Participation of major businesses and the government to connect students directly and immediately to job opportunities.

This presentation and workshop will describe the elements of TeKnowave, present the process of development and implementation and it will discuss how the TeKnoWave program can be adapted to the needs of other countries and communities and other industrial sectors.

Authors:

Rima Aristocrat
Grant Thomas

Rima Aristocrat is President and CEO of 106-year old Willis College. She transformed a small secretarial school into a leading e-business and Internet training institute and maintains a leadership role in the high technology training industry. Her career spans over 20 years of senior management in the business of education. Her accomplishments include successful partnerships with major global manufacturers in the IT industry, successful implementation of technology in education and spokesperson for the advancement of opportunity for youth. She is the only Canadian represented on Microsoft's Education Council. She has initiated the first Canadian Academic Development Institute (CADI), implemented the first inter-provincial partnership between a university and a private college and launched the Canadian Aboriginal IT training initiative, TeKnoWave. Her contributions to the Ottawa School Breakfast Program, Kanata's Senior Citizen Centre and other community programs has been recognized in the media as community development at its best. She has received numerous awards for her contribution to education, including recognition in the Who's Who of Canadian Women, named as one of Ottawa's 100 most influential leaders, listed among 2000 of the world's respected individuals by Who's Who in the 21st Century and awarded by the International Biographical Center of Cambridge, England, with a 21st Century Medal for her outstanding contribution to private education industry.

Grant Thomas is President of KRC Knowledge Resources Canada Inc, a company committed to building Canada's international markets in the field of learning and technology. He is currently engaged by Willis College for the implementation of the Canadian TeKnoWave Aboriginal capacity building program. As a consultant, he has led major projects in many parts of the world including the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Europe and Mexico. He is a former partner in PriceWaterhouseCoopers, former President of Canadian Artificial Intelligence Corporation and a founder of Neurope Lab, a research think tank in France. He was in senior management of SHL Systemhouse in Canada and the U.S. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Precarn Inc., the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems and SATDIS, the Secretariat for African Trade Development and Information Services. He has recently completed a 5-year secondment as an executive with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and its Acacia Initiative, focused on applying information and communications technology for economic and social development in Africa.

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