Closing the digital divide
At a time when the pace of change and disruption continues to accelerate, solving today’s complex challenges requires a combination of both human ingenuity and technology. But as the digital divide widens, all stakeholders need to come together to close critical skills gaps so we can build a more resilient and inclusive world. This is especially important during this period of rapid growth of generative artificial intelligence, which, as we found in our recent Hopes and Fears Survey, has the potential to increase disparities between workers with and without digital skills.
Our New world. New skills. initiative is a key way we’re taking action. It addresses the mismatch between the skills people have today and those needed to navigate the digital world.
Everyone should be able to live, learn, work and participate in the digital world
60% of the world’s population remains excluded from the ever-expanding digital economy
Our upskilling commitment
Through our New world. New skills. initiative, we've committed to provide digital upskilling to 2 million Canadians to help them maximize their potential.
Here’s how we’re reaching our goal of upskilling 2 million Canadians:
Matching our people with not-for-profit boards and empowering them to upskill others
Upskilling board directors and management teams has a halo effect. We know there’s a critical need for this training based on feedback and research coming out of the not-for-profit sector. The socioeconomic impact could be exponential.
Empowering our volunteers to share knowledge
PwC’s open source digital literacy curriculum lets our people share knowledge in areas like data analytics, automation and artificial intelligence so others can help solve key issues facing society now and in the future.
Delivering large-scale pro bono projects with scalable impact
This will give people in communities across Canada access to practical solutions to their challenges in an environment that helps them learn and develop.
How our people are
helping to upskill Canadians
“I led a pro bono project with Alloprof, a Quebec-based charity that uses new technologies to help students develop their capabilities free of charge and help our next generation of leaders maximize their potential.”
Emily Doramajian, Senior associate, PwC Canada
“I was proud to be part of our women-led pro bono engagement team to help Women in Capital Markets develop new training modules to help supercharge their commitments to equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging.”
Samantha Nagaratnam, Director, PwC Canada
Providing free interactive curriculum to educators
As part of our commitment to closing the digital divide, we’re bringing resources to educators and students who may not otherwise have access to them. We’ve collaborated with Code.org to create a technology skills curriculum for students.
The curriculum includes easy-to-follow lesson plans accompanied by engaging activities on topics such as cybersecurity, data analytics, web and app development and the Internet of Things. It helps students make connections between technology topics they might be interested in and potential careers in those areas.
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