Fostering AI talent through a community-grounded approach

Canada has long excelled in AI research, driven by foundational discoveries by its luminaries. Now the new national ‘AI for All’ strategy focuses on broad societal and economic applications. This strategy outlines Canada’s roadmap to rise to a global AI leader through widespread AI adoption and fostering AI talent. 

Bridging the gaps 

Broadening AI use is critical given Canada’s current low ranking in AI literacy. The strategy proposes to bridge this gap through entry-level training in AI adoption and skills development initiatives. Together, these programs aim to establish educational pathways to prepare and empower Canadians for an AI-driven economy. 

Canadian AI strength lies in its research excellence. By expanding the Canada CIFAR AI Chairs program, the government aims to increase the top-tier AI talent working in Canada. The real test however will be bridging the gap between research and commercialization. So far, ‘global citation without local creation’ has been a common theme for AI research in Canada. To bridge the commercialization as well as AI adoption gaps(1) in businesses, the strategy lays out a comprehensive funding plan. 

Potential challenges with community engagement 

As the strategy is implemented, AI’s societal and economic presence is expected to grow. However, this growth should be balanced against real-world challenges that could undermine public confidence, such as the concern about AI-driven job loss and to what extent the invested for-profit companies will deliver the returns to the community. 

As for the AI talent specifically, the report notes that the proximity to the world’s largest technology market has been driving migration of Canadian talent and startups, chasing better salaries and capital. The challenges however extend beyond the professional context. For example, a Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) event(2) highlighted that basic issues like student affordability remain unaddressed. Therefore to foster a stream of AI talent which is Canada’s strategic asset, deeper improvements are necessary. 

There is an opportunity to foster AI talent by balancing top-down market-focused strategy with a bottom-up community-grounded approach—addressing welfare and resilience against job insecurity and ensuring benefit for the community. 

Need for community investment 

A sustainable approach may involve ‘working with’ the community instead of ‘acting on’ the community. In this respect, not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) embody deep community immersion. They generate revenue by delivering a broad range of essential services, while notably—unlike the for-profit companies—investing their revenues back into community-aligned missions. 

Even though NPOs are nontrivial contributors to the national economy, they are often overlooked for governmental support(3). In the ‘AI for All’ strategy, beyond specific AI education initiatives like CanCode(4), funding meant for NPOs is disproportionately low. For example, Canada’s flagship compute subsidy—the Compute Access Fund—explicitly requires lead applicants to be for-profit companies. While NPOs mostly run on donations and self-generated revenue, proportional funding could drive robust growth, especially in stagnant NPO focus areas such as research and education(5) where AI is expected to create outsized value. Overall, proportionate inclusion of NPOs could diversify the AI services thus contributing to healthy growth of the AI-driven economy. 

More broadly, due to their community-grounded nature, strategic support to NPOs is more likely to bring benefits of AI to the community, acting as a counterbalance to purely commercial focus. 

Motivated and resilient workforce 

From the perspective of an AI talent such as an AI researcher, meaningful, community welfare focused employment can be a strong motivator, which should be recognised as a key factor in attracting and retaining talent. A notable example from the AI industry is OpenAI’s beginning as a mission-driven NPO, which attracted top talent despite lower financial incentives(6). Overall, the non-profit sector’s capacity to generate meaningful employment supports the ‘AI for All’ objective of fostering local talent and mitigating poaching. 

Social welfare NPOs can help sustain AI talent by providing a vital safety net, considering the remarkable representation of the vulnerable demographic among the AI talent pool. Among the Canadian postsecondary graduates in AI-relevant fields such as mathematics, computer sciences, and information sciences, around 50% belong to the visible minority group whereas international graduates from middle-income countries are more likely to stay in Canada post- graduation. 

Moreover, NPOs are also major job creators, especially for the vulnerable demographics including immigrants, women, and visible minorities, offering jobs to newcomers. Immigrants tend to choose NPO jobs for reasons such as social support and flexible hiring practices. Therefore, collectively, the non-profit sector serves as a key contributor to fostering a motivated and resilient workforce, by attracting talent through meaningful jobs plus sustaining the talent through social welfare. Therefore NPOs should not be ignored in building an AI-driven economy. 

Towards truly realizing the ‘AI for all’ vision 

In the implementation of ‘AI for All’, the non-profit sector should be treated as an equal partner. NPOs can uniquely generate community benefits and foster the AI talent. To enable this, the strategy requires an implementation which considers the following possibilities:  

1. To reduce the talent loss, targeted bridging programs through research and education operated by NPOs could provide the much-needed investment into the resident talent(7), mitigating the loss of high-skill immigrants and those with in demand occupations. 
2. To work with the community, knowledge mobilization could be implemented in the form of participatory AI research guided by community-based knowledge users and knowledge holders. 
3. To diversify and decentralise AI services, NPOs could be provided with proportional access to AI infrastructure and funding. 
4. To provide resilience against AI generated job insecurity, better supported NPOs can play an outsized role. 

In truly fulfilling the ‘AI for All’ vision spreading the benefits for all Canadians, investing in the sector where the community operates is necessary, because this enables deeper community immersion, which can “naturally” grow the talent ecosystem while pursuing economic prosperity.

References 

1. Workplace artificial intelligence use: A profile of sociodemographic and job  characteristics https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2026001/article/00007- eng.htm. 
2. Canada’s AI Advantage: Why It Exists—and What It Will Take to Scale It – CSPC  https://sciencepolicy.ca/event/canadas-ai-advantage/. 
3. Canada’s largest sector starved: Inside the financial crisis reshaping Canada’s fraying non-profits – Future of Good https://futureofgood.co/canadas-largest-sector-starved inside-the-financial-crisis-reshaping-canadas-fraying-non-profits/. 
4. CanCode https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en/programs-and-initiatives/cancode. 
5. Quarterly Non-Profit Institutions Economic Account: Interactive tool  https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2022009-eng.htm. 
6. How Philanthropy Built, Lost, and Could Reclaim the A.I. Race – Chronicle of  Philanthropy  https://www.philanthropy.com/news/how-philanthropy-built-lost-and could-reclaim-the-a-i-race/. 
7. The problem with Canada’s plan to buy scientific prestige  https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00743-1.