Google Canada Commits $2.75 Mill. Towards Québec's Digital Skills Training

After nearly twenty years in Québec, Google Canada is celebrating the official opening of the Google Viger space, a sustainability-focused office in downtown Montréal. The office proudly pays homage to local Montréal communities and the vibrancy of the city. To deepen support for Quebec's technology ecosystem, Google is committing $2.75 million, which includes continued support of Mila, expanding Google Career Certificate courses and providing Google.org grants to Digital Moment, NPower Canada and other local nonprofits.

"Since our beginnings in 2004 where 3 engineers made up our entire presence, the new office is home to a variety of teams that work on some of the most crucial products and services Google offers worldwide, everything from cybersecurity, to AI research, to Chrome and Cloud," says Fabrice Jaubert, Montréal Site Lead, Google Canada. "The retrofitted historical building pays tribute to Montréal by reflecting the essence of five of the city's most beloved neighbourhoods - Little Italy, Le Village, Le Plateau, Chinatown and Old Port, it includes carefully curated art from local artists, and is equipped with the latest LEED Gold sustainability standards."

Today's new $1.5 million in funding to Mila Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute will help support fundamental AI research projects in areas like AI for Humanity, climate change, and sustainable agriculture. Support will also be provided to increase successful participation of students and faculty from underrepresented groups in computing research careers. Mila's work to push boundaries in the development of innovative approaches to machine learning for AI, has put Montréal on the map as a world-renowned AI hub.

"Google's ongoing investment in AI in Quebec and at Mila is a testament to the strength of private, public, and academic partnerships that enable the best and brightest researchers as they advance responsible AI applications across sectors," says Valérie Pisano, President and CEO, Mila. "Google's ongoing commitment to Mila's research community and our equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives confirms Quebec's global leadership position in AI, enabling cutting-edge research, growth and innovation."

Google is also announcing a Google.org grant to Digital Moment (formerly Kids Code Jeunesse) to launch The Quebec Digital Literacy Project, a program aimed to equip teachers & students in grades 3-12 with digital skills. The Quebec Digital Literacy Project is a three part solution, consisting of classroom programming; a youth-led social innovation lab, and ongoing roundtable discussions to reflect and share ideas on key issues such as social equity and climate change, and how the role of changing technologies can address them.

"Since 2013, Digital Moment has been working with schools, school boards and communities across Quebec to bring digital skills into youth's education," says Kate Arthur, Founder & CEO, Digital Moment. "With Google's funding, we will be able to go further, reach deeper, and continue to empower young people, especially those from underserved and underrepresented communities, to be engaged and innovative citizens in a digital era."

To help job seekers in Quebec gain the technical and digital skills required in the current job market, Google is now offering the Project Management and IT Support Google Career Certificates in French. The courses will be available to the public on Coursera, a global online learning platform. Google.org will also provide a grant to NPower Canada to deliver the Google Career Certificates in Quebec. NPower Canada will offer need-based scholarships to the programs that will be distributed through local workforce development nonprofits La Maison de l'Amitié and AIM CROIT.

"We are excited to offer our TechPathways programs in Québec to continue to help more job seekers equip themselves with professional training and in-demand tech skills, including Google Career Certificates, allowing them to launch into meaningful careers," said Michell Miller, Managing Director, Quebec, NPower Canada. "Since NPower Canada's inception in 2014, more than 80% of our 4,700 alumni have found employment in the technology sector, and we are thrilled to soon be able to help the Francophone population with the launch of our fifth national site in Québec."

Since Google Canada opened doors in Montréal in 2004, giving back to our local community has always been a core part of our mission. This continues today with additional funding and Google.org grants to the following local organizations: Startup Montreal, Pathways to Education, E2 Adventures, UpstartED, AI4Good Lab, and Resilience Montréal. These organizations work to tackle digital skilling, fostering startup communities, STEM education, job training, wellness for the most vulnerable and more.

About Digital Moment: Founded in 2013 by Kate Arthur, Digital Moment (formerly Kids Code Jeunesse) is a Canadian-based charity and a global leader in mobilizing communities to build a better future through digital skills education. Digital Moment focuses on creating programs and experiences for youth and their communities on digital skills like coding, algorithm and data literacy, and artificial intelligence. Digital Moment includes three educational initiatives: Kids Code Jeunesse, Digital2030, and a social innovation lab.

About NPower Canada: NPower Canada is a charitable organization that launches underserved youth and adults, including people with disabilities, BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ individuals, into meaningful & sustainable careers in technology. Through its free in-demand digital and professional skills training programs, NPower Canada connects job seekers to employers who are looking for junior IT/tech talent. NPower Canada has grown from enrolling 87 learners in 2015 to 1,700 in 2021, scaling within Ontario and expanding nationally to Alberta in 2019, Nova Scotia and British Columbia in 202 and Quebec in 2022. To date, more than 80% of NPower Canada's 4,700 alumni have secured in-demand tech jobs such as Help Desk Analyst, QA Specialist and Information Security Analyst with industry leaders such as Accenture, CGI, CIBC, Cisco, Deloitte, IBM, RBC, Softchoice, TD and TELUS.

About Mila: Founded in 1993 by Université de Montréal Professor Yoshua Bengio, Mila is now an AI research institute that brings together nearly 900 researchers studying machine learning. Montreal-based Mila's mission is to be a global hub for scientific advances that inspires innovation and AI developments that benefit everyone. Mila is a not-for-profit organization recognized worldwide for its major contributions to the field of deep learning, including language modelling, machine translation, object recognition and generative models. To learn more, visit mila.quebec/en/.

About Google Canada: Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a global technology leader, Google's innovations in web search and advertising have made its website a top internet property and its brand one of the most recognized in the world. Google Canada has offices in Waterloo, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa with employees working on teams across Engineering, AI Research, Sales and Marketing.

About Google.org: Google's philanthropy brings the best of Google to help solve some of humanity's biggest challenges combining funding, innovation, and technical expertise to support underserved communities and provide opportunity for everyone. We engage nonprofits and social enterprises who make a significant impact on the communities they represent, and whose work has the potential to produce meaningful change. We want a better world, faster — and we believe in leveraging technology and applying scalable data-driven innovation to move the needle.

SOURCE Google Canada