Cyber, AI labour shortages lead to $1-million Bell investment in University of New Brunswick
BNN Bloomberg
A shortage in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity experts has led to a partnership between the University of New Brunswick and Bell Cyber to better train more students in the evolving digital age.
Bell is providing $1 million to get the program underway, with the hope it graduates 150 students annually who are ready to fill the gap.
John Menezes, president at Bell Cyber, a relatively new platform within Bell Canada that uses AI to detect cyber threats, says there’s at least 50,000 unfilled positions across Canada on the cybersecurity side alone.
There’s even more on the AI side, he adds, because it’s now involved in every facet of business.
“We can’t hire people. We can’t find people. We can’t find people with cybersecurity expertise,” he said. “So now if I want people to know cyber, know digitization and know AI, it’s almost impossible. So what we have to do is we have to develop the talent from ground up.”
That meets the mandate of the McKenna Institute, a centre at UNB focused on economic growth and the digital age.
