TOGETHER WITH

Welcome to this week’s Sunday Briefing, brought to you by Switchboard Public Relations – an Earnscliffe Strategies company. In this issue, read about a continuing lack of diversity in Canada’s tech sector, Indigenous economic opportunities, funding for early-stage entrepreneurs, and Spring’s latest pitch challenge.

Now onto today’s briefing. It’s 920 words: a three-minute read.

-Emily, [email protected]

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Gaps in representation remain, says tech sector report

Tech and People Network (TAP Network), a tech industry association serving people and culture professionals, released their annual Diversity in Tech Dashboard this week. As the name suggests, the in-depth report provides insight on the industry’s equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging policies and practices, based on information collected from 189 employers.

The organization discouraged readers from making year-over-year comparisons. With an ever-growing data set, drawing trends — while tempting — may not be useful.

Annual comparisons aside, the dashboard results show that Canada’s tech sector still has significant work to do when it comes to representation. Some highlights (or lowlights, if you will):

• Gender pay gaps exist at every job level surveyed, with the gap ranging from 7 percent to 18 percent, depending on job level.

• Representation of women is 36.9 percent, while 2021 Canadian census data reported 50.83 percent of the general population identifies as female.

• Indigenous representation in the sector is 0.9 percent, while Indigenous peoples make up 5 percent of Canada’s population.

• People with disabilities remain significantly underrepresented at 4.2 percent. In 2017, Statistics Canada reported that 15.3 percent of the population aged 25 to 44 identified as a person with disabilities, as well as 24.3 percent of the population aged 45 to 64.

Nonetheless, it’s not all bad news. The 2023 dashboard notes two areas where representation in the tech sector in fact surpasses that in the Canadian population:

• Representation of people identifying as 2SLGBTQ is 8.8 percent, while 2021 Canadian census data reported 4 percent of Canada’s population aged 15 and older identifying as LGBTQ.

• Representation of people identifying as a person of colour and/or Black is 37.5 percent in tech, compared to 26.5 percent of the Canadian population.

Based off data collected through a confidential employee self-reporting process, TAP Network’s Diversity in Tech dashboard is free and available to the public.

🏙️ Community catchup, powered by VIATEC

The VIATEC Community Awards took place on Thursday, to a riotous success — think flying orcas, Stars in Their Eyes singing challenges, and award theme songs for each astronaut gong presented.

For the full list of award winners, stay tuned to Victoria Tech Journal and VIATEC’s channels soon.

📰 More Victoria innovation news

💼 Let’s get down to business: Carol Anne Hilton, founder and CEO of the Indigenomics Institute, discussed at the inaugural Indigenomics on Bay Street conference how Canada has restricted the economic opportunities of Indigenous peoples for too long.

⭐ Andy, you’re a star: B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy partnered with the University of Victoria to provide early-stage funding for graduates of the university’s entrepreneurship program.

🎤 Tell me what you want: Victoria period care startup Joni took part in Spring’s Nimbus Synergies Health Impact Investor Challenge. Amongst a group of five finalists, Joni pitched to a roomful of investors and judges.

🕴️ Tech jobs of the week

Find your next career:

• Infrastructure Administrator at City of Victoria

• Solutions Architect at VertiGIS

• Accounting Clerk at Redbrick

Hiring in Victoria? Reply to this email and let us know!

📅 Upcoming events

Dec 8 | Open Topics & Planning Session: December CEO Breakfast Club

Join VIATEC’s latest open session where local tech leaders can bring burning issues and opportunities to share with their peers. The result is a candid discussion of challenges and opportunities currently in front of local tech companies.

Dec 11 | iWIST Holiday Party and Annual General Meeting

Save the date with some of the most spirited and festive women in science and technology. Toast to the communities' accomplishments over the past year and provide input on official iWIST business.

Have an upcoming event? Reply to let us know.

🙋 I need a…

We at Victoria Tech Journal know you, our community, pretty well. Are you searching for someone in your field to have coffee with, a hiring hookup, a lead on local investors, or suggestion for a great Victoria tech tool? Whatever you’re hunting for, let us know. We’ll post it in this section and make it happen.

This week from XYYNX Materials:
We're looking for a dynamic business development representative to expand our market presence, spread the word about our innovative solutions, and build relationships with new clients. We'd love to hear from anyone with a background in sales, some technical expertise (chemistry or other), and a lot of enthusiasm!

Email your requests to [email protected].

Have something or someone we should know about? Reply or email [email protected] so we can work together to spotlight the lesser-known stories of Victoria's tech ecosystem.