Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada at Sunset/Photo Shutterstock.
The Government of Canada has announced the launch of an initiative aimed at educating young people in AI literacy skills with the objective of helping new generations understand and use AI – and build tools with AI for those who want to.
Canada’s AI minister, Evan Solomon announced the initiative at an event held at Edmonton’s Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), where he said education as “the best hedge against change”, he explained that the initiative – which forms a C$13m (US$9.3m) partnership between Amii and the federal government – would consist of three streams: one aimed at students, one at educators, and another at the Canadian public. Each stream is expected to focus on providing “practical learning opportunities” around the fundamentals of AI.
Through the initiative, learners will get to grips with how to produce AI-generated information and identify instances of misinformation, bias and privacy risks. They will also learn to use AI technology “more confidently and responsibly” according to statements from Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada (ISED).
The partnership will be led by Amii, one of three of Canada’s national AI institutes, the other two of which are Mila, based in Montreal, and Toronto’s Vector Institute. On its website, Amii said it aims to “equip communities with the tools to contribute to meaningful conversations, drive innovation, and ensure AI is developed and applied in ways that benefit society as a whole”.
“Amii has shown us what practical AI education can achieve,” Solomon said. “Amii has an education course that we are building on for the entire country.”
This year’s AccelerateGOV conference, co-hosted by the Government of Canada, will take place on December 16 and 17, and will share insights from governments around the world on how to deliver better, more efficient and resilient digitally-enabled public services with public servants from Canada and beyond.
This event is an opportunity to learn from government innovators, and will explore real-world transformation use cases in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world.
Find out more about the event and register to attend here.
How the training will roll out
The initiative’s rollout will take place in stages over the coming months, with one free three-hour course available to post-secondary students, the first chapter of an Essentials for Educators course slated for 21 September, and five additional chapters due to be published in autumn.
The Government of Canada will also provide workers and job seekers with access to short-duration AI training through its Job Bank portal, which will guide Canadians on understanding and adapting to the changes AI will make to jobs, tools, and workplaces.
Job Bank is the country’s national employment service that helps Canadians look for work while helping national employers recruit and hire across the country.
The National AI Literacy Initiative was first announced in June this year, as part of the government’s National AI Strategy. Its overall aim is to offer entry-level AI training to all Canadians, a key action of the strategy that included the creation of the initiative, as well as an investment of C$30m (US$21m) through the state-funded programme CanCode to enable not-for-profit organisations to deliver free digital skills training to children.
Later this year, the government will launch the Essentials for Canadians programming will launch nationally, with programming being delivered through community partners.
Read more: Digital Transformation Canada to give public servants ‘tools and capabilities to deliver’
The national strategy
Canada’s national AI strategy – entitled Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All – set out how it would work to drive AI across the economy over the next decade.
The strategy is focused in particular on tech sovereignty and public trust. Comprising more than C$2bn (US$1.4bn) in spending for programmes to scale up AI use across the public and private sectors and to increase AI literacy, it outlined six pillars of AI development.
These pillars included safeguarding democracy; powering shared national prosperity; building a sovereign AI foundation; and fostering trusted partnerships and global alliances.
It also included a section on ‘transforming public service delivery with AI’, which covered uses from processing applications faster to better understanding public needs.
The country’s digital sector employs around 800,000 workers, contributing more than C$140bn (US$100bn) to GDP, with 150,000 jobs “directly associated with AI”.
Read more: Canada publishes new national AI strategy with focus on trust and sovereignty