TalentED YYC Pilot Project will Conclude on March 31

by | Mar 24, 2025 | Home Page Feature | 2 comments

TalentED YYC pilot concluding on March 31

March 24, 2025

Dear partners, employers, and advocates,

I am writing to share that the TalentED YYC pilot project will conclude on March 31, 2025.

TalentED YYC officially launched in April 2023 and the pilot was funded until March 31, 2025. It was the largest work integrated learning pilot in Canada and our team is so proud to have achieved the goals of this project. In just two years, we have generated over 3200 opportunities for students, connected with over 1500 local employers, and generated an estimated impact of $16M for our local economy.

If you are interested in learning more about our project achievements, I encourage you to explore the TalentED YYC Project Summary or the Final Report created by HESA, our 3rd party evaluator.

Resources Still Available

While the project and TalentED YYC team will formally wrap up on March 31, our website will remain live for a few more months. Please continue to use the funding information, work integrated learning catalogue, and overall resources to help you navigate your path to working with students.

Although our one-on-one employer services have now concluded, including access to our centralized posting portal, we encourage you to connect with the following post-secondary representatives:

Should you wish to expand your reach with institutions outside of Calgary, you can use your TalentED YYC portal credentials to access the Magnet portal.

Thank You!

As this pilot project concludes, I want to thank some key groups:

  • To employers who worked with our team, it has been a privilege to learn about your organizations and help connect you with the incredible students in our city. We hope you will continue to work with student talent for many years to come.
  • To our project funders, we are grateful that you made this innovative work possible. We are proud to have met the goals you outlined, and are thankful for your investment in finding new ways to increase work integrated learning options, especially at a regional level.
  • To our partners, thank you for your collaboration and extensive contributions. A pilot of this complexity was only possible with the ongoing support from our seven post-secondary institutions (which included over 70 work integrated learning practitioners), the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, the Nonprofit Chamber, our funding delivery partners, and countless additional champions we met along the way. I would also particularly like to thank Calgary Economic Development for being the project champion and providing a home for our team. This project is a testament to Calgary’s identity as a place where blue sky ideas converge and collaboration inspires success.

Reflection

As I reflect on the past two years, I am so pleased that we have accomplished what we set out to do: we made it easier for employers to offer meaningful work experience for local post-secondary students, and we successfully piloted an innovative, regional approach to increasing work integrated learning (WIL) opportunities.

March is National Co-Op and Work Integrated Learning month with a call to action of WIL for all. While our pilot is coming to an end, our team is proud of what we have created, grateful for the opportunities, and excited about how this work contributed to achieving WIL for more students in Calgary.

We also hope that our pilot, its successes, and its lessons learned will serve as a valuable contribution to future initiatives so all students can benefit from work integrated learning.

On behalf of the TalentED YYC team, thank you so much for being part of this project.

With gratitude,

D’Andre Wilson

Executive Director

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