With a wave of technology-driven disruptions impacting almost every industry in B.C., the province’s economic engine is increasingly in need of workers with high-tech skills sets. To meet this shift head on, the British Columbia Institute of Technology is ensuring that its students in all areas of study are equipped with the tech skills required to fulfill industry needs through a unique applied learning model.
“Our mandate is to provide workers for B.C.,” says Bethany Edmunds, associate dean of computing at BCIT. “It’s important for us to listen to our industry partners and figure out where industry is going and what we need to train our students for. What everyone comes back with is technology.”
The reality of tomorrow’s job market is that graduates in a wide range of fields, including healthcare, trades, engineering, business fields and many others, will require tech-related competencies.
“Every job is going to have a technology component to it,” says BCIT President Kathy Kinloch. “BCIT is preparing our students to anticipate and embrace the high-tech demands of their future workplaces, no matter what their field.”
To ensure graduates are equipped with the skills they’ll need to adapt to quickly-changing industries, BCIT leverages close industry relationships, hands-on learning and state-of-the-art simulation.
As part of its mandate, the school was at the centre of the recent #BCTECH Summit (May 14- 16 at the Vancouver Convention Centre). Now in its third year, the annual technology conference is the largest in Western Canada, and showcases the province’s growing technology industry.
The BCIT Tech Showcase included a number of student-run projects and hands-on demos meant to illustrate the unique applied learning model at BCIT, in which real-world projects, co-ops and work-integrated learning feature heavily.