Hello.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Mr. Richards and Mr. Desilets for inviting me here.

I do want to emphasize that Mr. Jeff Musson should have been here today. I know he's watching. Hi, Jeff. He encountered severe medical issues on the weekend, not life-threatening but his doctor wisely told him not to come, so I'm going to try to do as best a job as I can.

I'm the director of the professional development institute at the University of Ottawa. PDI, as we call it, serves the upskilling, re-skilling and learning needs of about 10,000 people every year. These are people who are beyond the baccalaureate and master's degree programs, so basically professionals. Of the 10,000, a good maybe two-thirds if not three-quarters are from the federal public sector. We like to think that we work at the intersection of academia, government and industry.

The coding for veterans program that I'm describing today is part of that institute, and I will add is probably my pet project.

Coding for veterans helps fill the cyber skill gaps in Canada's tech workforce. We observe that members who have released from the CAF have the skills, the temperament and the aptitudes to perform successfully in cybersecurity. We say that we go from the battlefield to the cyber field, or from deployment to employment, if you will. We have a 90% success rate with all the veterans who take this program, and I'll describe that a bit later.

There are three basic streams. Without going too technical about it, one is on secure software development. Another is network security associate, and then another one is the cybersecurity architect program. Each stream represents about 650 hours to complete, so it is not for the faint of heart. It requires a lot of engagement and commitment. Typically, people will do it over eight months, which essentially adds up to 20 hours or so a week for a duration of eight months.

Completion of one of the streams leads to a certificate of professional development from the University of Ottawa and, very importantly, also prepares graduates to write industry-recognized certificates. That's hugely important for industry, especially in this field. They won't let just anyone come in through the service and stuff like that. They need to show that you have the credentials, and this program prepares them to get those credentials: the CISSP, CCNA and a whole bunch of acronyms like those.

The program is offered 100% online and is self-paced but with tutorial support. We don't let people fend for themselves. They are self-paced, but they have access to real-time tutors. The program, of course, is available across Canada.

The program is offered in both official languages. Currently, 50% of our courses are offered in French, but our goal is to offer 100% of our courses in both French and English by the end of this year, as per the University of Ottawa's mandate. We are mandated to offer all of our programs in both languages, apart from a few exceptions. We have made presentations in Quebec and New Brunswick. For example, we went to Valcartier and Bagotville. On October 26, we went to the Aéro Montréal symposium in Mirabel to promote our program.

We do a pre-evaluation. It's important to ensure that people who come in are not set up for failure.

We want to make sure that there is a minimum skills set. Even if we don't expect to welcome students who already have some knowledge of computer science, they still need to have certain basic skills. The preselection process includes an interview, because we are looking for people who have the necessary cognitive skills and temperament for the program. As I stated earlier, we have a 90% success rate, which is the envy of many deans at the university. This success rate is far higher than that of many programs at the university.

We work closely with key actors within the industry, such as Cisco, Amazon, LinkedIn and CompTIA to offer the program. We do this because firstly, we want to give our students experience that is real and practical. Secondly, working with the industry increases employability. Often, participants in the program are offered a job before even having finished their studies.

We are also adding a mandatory course in organizational behaviour.

Everybody has to go through an organizational behaviour course in addition to the technical training.

In this way, we seek to cover the cultural aspects of the IT world, and cybersecurity in particular.

We also wish to ensure that each participant acquires the necessary skills to be employable.

It's important for our graduates to understand how to prepare a CV and how to develop an online profile, and this is what we do through that course.

The average age of our participants is 39 years, which is not very old. That means that they still have many years of service ahead of them: 80% of our participants are men and 20% are women, which is more or less the ratio that exists within the military, I am told.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

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