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Weekly Situation Report – April 9, 2020

April 9, 2020

SHIFTING from chaos to opportunity.  Crisis is a catalyst. Four weeks into the crisis and thankfully, opportunities are starting to arise. To support this crisis, Government at all levels are rapidly having to change. ‘Mission critical digital transformation’ is how Minister Murray, Digital Government describes the new M.O.

The City of Toronto, while conducting on-going crisis management, has reached out to TECHNATION to deliver a “Re-Imagining the City of Toronto’ digital transformation thought leadership series to address digital transformation at the municipal level. Many of you have relevant and operational experience in digital transformation. This is a great opportunity to bring forward key insights that is transferable to senior municipal leaders.

Results from our survey to date – 25% of our members have responded (50% of which are SMEs):

  • 54% have been had revenue impacts due to delayed or cancelled contracts
  • 41% expect to / or have laid off employees
  • 31% expect to be severely economically impacted

Actions taken. Thank you for the above feedback. To date, we have brought the survey results to the attention of Minister Anand, Public Service Procurement, Minister Murray, Digital Government, and have requested a meeting with Minister Bains, ISED and Minister Ng, Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade. More to follow.

Next week we will launch TECH2GOV Innovation Exchange.  Our goal – enable more agile procurement and facilitate governments at all levels to ‘buy tech – don’t your own’.  Partnering with tech associations across Canada to showcase technology, this one-stop portal will allow government sourcing capability and co-creation of tech solutions between the private-public sectors to enable rapid deployment of solutions and positive impact for the tech sector. Link available Monday.

Welcome to our newest member – ELEMENTAI, a global developer of AI software and solutions that help people and machines work smarter, together.                           

Finally, we recognize that this may be difficult long weekend for many, used to spending time with family near and far. Stay healthy, stay positive! I look forward to connecting again early next week.

Angela Mondou, President and CEO

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On April 9, hosted first COVID-19 Working Group call to discuss the impact of the global health crisis on member companies and the role of TECHNATION moving  forward. For more information, contact Nevin French.

The Government of Canada announced changes to its Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the details of which can be found here. As this policy continues to develop, TECHNATION remains in contact with requisite government departments. We expect to see a bill before Parliament to enact the Subsidy in the coming days.

The next federal PSBC will take place on April 30. We expect to hear from Shared Services Canada on large IT procurements. We’re continuing to stay abreast of the work of the federal government to prepare a PSBC that best reflects the needs of members. To register, click here.

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UPCOMING EVENTS &

COMMITTEE MEETINGS

  • April 16: 30-minute Cybersecurity During the COVID Crisis webinar. 11:00 a.m. EDT.  Registration and details here. FREE – everyone welcome.
  • April 22: Health Advocacy Committee. 4:00 p.m. EDT Go-to-Meeting
  • April 30: TECHNATION Federal Public Sector Business Committee. 8:00 a.m. EDT. Go-to-Webinar

STUDENT WORK PLACEMENTS

The TECHNATION Career Ready Program supports remote student work terms with its wage subsidy of up to $7000. Many students across Canada are still looking for summer work – learn how you can connect with these students today at www.itactalent.ca/careerready

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On April 8, TELUS Health announced that it was enabling 26,000 Canadian family doctors to conduct virtual visits with their patients. This new feature allows physicians to virtually support their own roster of patients while maintaining continuity of care and fully up-to-date health records. Learn more

TELUS also announced that Darren Entwistle, CEO, will forgo his salary for April, May and June 2020, and donate it to Canadian healthcare workers on the front lines, battling COVID-19. Learn more

To improve capacity to provide care for COVID-19 patients, provincial ministries of health and hospitals across the country have taken the unprecedented emergency action of cancelling most elective surgeries. Doing so has freed up hospital beds normally occupied by elective surgical patients following their surgeries. Novari Health will help manage the recovery. Learn more

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#TECH4Canada                              

#TechComesTogether

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has partnered with Statistics Canada to launch the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions which measures the impact of COVID-19 on Canadian businesses and helps the Government of Canada devise strategies and mechanisms to foster the survival and continuity of businesses.

ELEMENTAI has developed a platform that connects structured and unstructured datasets that will assist clinical researchers, scientific researchers, public health authorities and frontline workers; and is lending its machine learning expertise and resources to those working toward potential solutions to assist with the COVID-19 outbreak. Learn more

Pluralsight has opened up its platform for the month of April for free to anyone who is interested in skilling up while at home. Get free access to 7,000+ expert-led video courses and more all month long. Learn more

HELP A STUDENT/ FAMILY OUT! The ERA is helping to supply laptops and computers to families in need; especially important now that students who need one to do their school work, can’t access local libraries or gain online access from home.  If you are a company with unwanted devices call 1.877.9EWASTE, email info@era.ca or fill in their form online now!

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  Stay safe, stay healthy.

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