Produktion2030’s Graduate School in Canada: Skills in focus

DAY 8 of our Produktion2030 course to Canada!

Today, we were honored to meet with the CEO Rhonda Barnet, and COO Carl Heinlein of Palette Skills. This meeting was a personal highlight for me from this trip!

Palette Skills is a company that aims to bridge Canada’s skill gaps. Even though Canada has highly educated people, companies face major challenges in filling vacancies and developing their workforce. Palette Skills has a program called Upskill Canada, which offers a national talent platform, helping companies to find the right talent, and individuals to find relevant learning and career pathways.

 Palette Skill promises that everyone who goes through the program should have a new, better job within 6 months. So far, they have trained 1658 job seekers, and they focus on untapped talent, including women, people who recently migrated to the country, and racialized groups. They also offer coaching and interview training, ensuring their participants find jobs afterward.

We discussed similarities and differences between Canadian and Swedish education, e.g. how applied the training in universities in the two countries is. Palette Skills has defined six “Growth sectors” to focus their upskilling programs on, i.e. Advanced manufacturing, Biomanufacturing, Clean technology, Cybersecurity, Digital agriculture, and digital technology.

We also discussed AI solutions for matching individuals to relevant skills and learning pathways. Definitely something we want to collaborate on in the future!