Future Skills @Cannexus

This registration is ONLY for the half-day Future Skills @Cannexus program. If you would like to attend the full Cannexus conference, the Future Skills @Cannexus program is included in the Cannexus registration fee. To register for Cannexus (including Future Skills @Cannexus), please register here.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have already registered for Cannexus or plan to, you will automatically have access to this Future Skills programming stream and you should not register for Future Skills @Cannexus separately.

At Cannexus 2023, Future Skills will showcase a varied program that highlights a vision for career guidance in Canada and delves deep into future trends and initiatives. 

Through panels and plenaries, speakers will explore topics like modernized career hubs, the value of effective upstream employer engagement, and the need for enhanced career guidance practitioner capacity. 

Participants will hear real-world examples as they continue to navigate employment challenges and opportunities and gain a better understanding of the changing career development sector.

Schedule

7:30 – 8:00  Registration, Breakfast

8:00 – 8:50  Opening Remarks and Session

Responsive Career Pathways: Guiding Careers for the Future

9:00 – 9:50  Session

Engaging Employers Upstream

9:50 – 10:20  Networking Coffee Break

10:20 – 11:10  Session

Empowering Career Practitioners to Guide a New Future

11:20 – 12:20  Keynote Tareq Hadhad

Resiliency Through Adversity

12:20 – 12:30  Closing Comments

Note: All sessions will have simultaneous interpretation available

Session Descriptions

Responsive Career Pathways: Guiding Careers for the Future

Karen Myer, CEO, Blueprint

This session will delve into key labour market trends shaping the future of work. It will highlight workers who are most affected by these shifts and the challenges they face navigating an increasingly complex skills system. Be part of shaping a vision for Career Hubs of the Future that help Canadians gain the skills they need to thrive in a changing labour market.

Learning outcomes:

• Increased awareness of the potential of responsive career pathways.
• Overview of trends shaping future of work and labour market
• Understanding of growing demands of the career development sector

As Blueprint’s founder and leader, Karen Myer has a developed a strong reputation for delivering solutions to address pressing public policy issues. Karen has extensive experience as a researcher, policy analyst, performance consultant and program evaluator.

Engaging Employers Upstream

This session will show how innovative employers from various sectors are upskilling, reskilling and adapting roles to support employees as they navigate change. Panellists will highlight the need for a shift in mindsets, change management and building social and emotional skills in workforce planning and training. They'll also explore the role of the career development sector in supporting employers and employees.

Learning outcomes:

• Learn about innovative employer programs
• Learn the skills that are in-demand by employers
• Learn about how career practitioners could work effectively with employers

Empowering Career Practitioners to Guide a New Future

Sareena Hopkins, Executive Director, Canadian Career Development Foundation

Building the capacity of practitioners and provider organizations to meet emerging needs is essential. This session will explore the skills and knowledge that are required at the practitioner and organizational level and what is needed to ensure capacity building opportunities are accessible to working practitioners. We will present a vision and plans for Canada's first-ever Career Development Practitioner Institute.

Learning outcomes:

• Understand the need to build practitioner and provider organization capacity
• Explore skills and knowledge needed at practitioner and organizational levels
• Learn about specific FSC-funded projects/initiatives that are building capacity

Sareena Hopkins has been instrumental in strategic initiatives in Canada & beyond. She worked with the Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training and CMEC on policy frameworks for career education and successful student transitions.

Resiliency Through Adversity

Tareq Hadhad, Founder and CEO, Peace by Chocolate

Join Tareq on an emotional journey from Syria to Canada with heart-breaking and perspective-shaping stops along the way. From sunny days in Syria where the scent of roses filled the air to the beginning of conflict and war. Listen as Tareq shares the fear and confusion that came when violence and danger begin to slowly surround his family. Understand what it is really like to spend days hiding in your basement, praying for safety and food and medicine. Learn how a family made the decision to leave everything behind in search of safety outside of their homeland only to find more uncertainty and desperation as refugees in Lebanon. Witness the life-changing impact of being granted a family ticket to Canada and watch as that country's Prime Minister singles out the Hadhad family and their community for its perseverance and kindness. This is an emotional rollercoaster that will leave you feeling inspired and resolved to make your own impact on the world.

Tareq Hadhad is telling his story. He was a Syrian refugee and now living his new life in Nova Scotia. He is the founder and CEO of Peace by Chocolate, the recipient of the EY Entrepreneur of The Year 2021 for Atlantic, named one of the Top 25 Immigrants in The Maritimes and awarded RBC’s top Immigrant Award and Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020. All of this has happened since Tareq’s arrival to Canada in December 2015 as a newcomer.

In 2012 the Hadhad’s factory that housed the family chocolate-making business were destroyed which forced them to seek safety. Passionate about peace and entrepreneurship, his family relaunched their business to recreate the chocolates they once exported across the Middle East.

In January 2020, Tareq received his official Canadian Citizenship which garnered international attention and has become one of the greatest accomplishments of his life.

Tareq has spoken at several events for corporate, government and not for profit organizations both in person and online. He has done over 500 interviews with different news teams across the globe. Tareq speaks on the compelling story of his family, the positive impact of Syrian newcomers and the spirit of entrepreneurship and giving back.

Host or Publisher CERIC-Future Skills Centre