A New Magnetic North: How Canada can Attract and Retain Young Talent Download the full report [ pdf ] Download the Executive Summary [ pdf ] Background Delegate Biographies Background Canada25's inaugural forum was held in Port Severn, Ontario, from May 25-27, 2001. We sought to address the question "How can Canada become a magnet for top talent?" In examining this issue, we aimed to: Identify the top considerations of young talent in deciding where to live and work Articulate a national agenda for change, based on the overall issues that emerged Recommend actions and initiatives on the issue in key sectors of Canadians society, including academic, health care, the public sector, the arts, the voluntary sector, technology and entrepreneurship and the professional sector (business, law and education). Our first forum was restricted to a small number of delegates (22) to ensure that we could provide a productive, expense-free and fun three-day experience. Delegates conducted research on the questions, interviewed over 100 leading Canadians in a number of fields, and worked in sector teams in the month leading up to the forum to ensure they brought a balanced perspective to the forum. Because of the small size of the group, delegates were highly involved in the process, and totally responsible for developing the ideas and recommendations in the final report. Although their initial commitment was only for the eight weeks around the forum weekend, the majority remains involved in building Canada25 for the future. Delegate Biographies Gil Alterovitz is a former Fulbright Scholar at the University of Toronto and is currently an NDSEG Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University under the Health Science and Technology Division. Gil has worked at IBM as an OS/2 program developer, at Motorola as an engineering intern (where he won the Motorola Intellectual Property Award), and as a consultant for several national clients. As a freelance writer, Gil's work has been featured in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sun Herald, and HMS Beagle. He has appeared or has been cited for national achievements in several newspapers, including three separate editions of USA Today. Linlea Armstrong is a graduate of UBC medical school and is currently a resident of medical genetics at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa. Linlea has published in various academic journals and has taught and lectured frequently on topics related to her field. She has also won numerous awards and sits on the Ottawa Hospital Research Ethics Board. In her spare time, she enjoys rowing, hiking and photography. Piali Dasgupta earned both undergraduate and master's level degrees in history at the University of Alberta and recently a PhD in history at the University of Cambridge with a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC). She has also been actively involved with a number of non-governmental organizations in Canada and England, including Amnesty International and UNESCO. In September, she returned to Canada to take up a place in the Government of Canada's management trainee program, initially placed at Human Resources Development Canada. Piali's long-term goals range from the development of an electronic archive of historical resources from around the world to learning to cope with Canadian winters again. David Eaves, a native of Vancouver B.C., is an associate consultant at Vantage Partners, a negotiating consulting firm in Boston, Massachusetts. Having studied in Ontario, Scotland, Spain, and the UK, David's education culminated in a master's degree in international relations from Oxford University, where his research concentrated on international conflict prevention and management. Proficient in French and Spanish, David also won a scholarship to the Lester B. Pearson Peacekeeping School in Nova Scotia and was involved in student leadership at St. Anthony's College. Fiona Grant is a graduate student in the Department of Pathology at Queen's University, where she is researching the immune response to gene therapy in the treatment of Hemophilia A. She is also extensively involved in volunteer work at cancer clinics nationwide. Fiona received the Gold Medal at the International Science and Engineering Fair, conducted award-winning research as a member of the cystic fibrosis research team at the Hospital for Sick Children, and won the McMaster University undergraduate biology research competition. Having grown up on Canada's west coast, she is addicted to everything related to the ocean, including scuba diving, sailing, rowing, surfing and rock-climbing on coastal cliffs. Claudia Harper is a Post-doctoral associate at the Division of Comparative Medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before studying at MIT, she completed a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Boston and a B.Sc. (with honours) at Concordia in Montreal. She has presented original research at several international conferences, won over a dozen scholarships and awards, and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Born and raised in Quebec City and fluently bilingual, Claudia also founded and launched VEDAKA Inc., a B2B portal through which veterinary practices, research institutes and the biomedical industry order pharmaceuticals from multiple manufacturers. When she's not studying the pathogenesis of stomach ulcers in marine mammals, you can find her sailing, painting or working in her garden. Although she has enjoyed exploring the restaurants near her home in Boston, she is yet to find one that makes poutine. Anne Hoekstra emigrated from Holland after completing her Masters degree in history and journalism to co-found The Student Media Group, where she was the Editor-in-Chief. The company publishes Business Sense and ENGINUITY, two magazines that were distributed across university campuses to business, engineering and computer science students, with a circulation of over 200,000. Anne feeds her interest in popular culture and media through her love for reading, sports and movies. Chris Kennedy is a newly appointed high school vice-principal in Coquitlam, BC. He is active in curriculum development and school-based extracurricular activities while concurrently enrolled in PhD level courses in education at the University of British Columbia. He is a former coach of the British Columbia Men's Provincial Basketball team. Marc Kielburger is a graduate of Harvard University and is currently studying a joint LLB/MBA at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. Marc is the Executive Director of Free the Children USA, the largest network of children helping children in the world with over 100,000 members in 35 countries. At Free the Children, Marc oversees the development of 250 primary schools across three continents, providing education to over 10,000 underprivileged children worldwide. Marc also is the CEO of Leaders Today, an international company that provides leadership training, products and services. His list of clients includes the United Nations, The State of the World forum and the American Mathematic and Science Academies. Marc also enjoys rugby, travel and cooking. Natasha Kong's career in new media began in 1994 when she co-founded Random Media Core, a creative new media house based in downtown Toronto. In 1999 she co-founded Savvy, Inc. and after raising significant startup capital from a group of Canadian investors, launched SheNetworks.com, an online young women's magazine. In the fall of 2000, she re-established Savvy, Inc. as a consulting company helping other organizations in the United States and Canada develop marketing campaigns, Internet strategies, web content and design. From 1997-1999 she hosted and wrote a technology column on the Discovery Channel's EXN-TV and @Discovery programs, and last May, won the Young Woman of the Year award at the Canadian New Media Awards. After many years of living and working in Toronto, she recently relocated to California. Cynthia Mackenzie is a politics graduate from the University of Calgary, and is currently pursuing a Masters degree at York University. She has been involved on the executive organizing committees of several campus-based human rights organizations, and was a speaker at the United Nations conference on human rights in Edmonton. She has published several articles on youth activism and has been recognized for these efforts by Volunteer Calgary's Leaders of Tomorrow and Maclean's. She spent time facilitating community development projects in rural Latin America, and spends her summers coordinating a leadership seminar at the Lester B. Pearson College. Mark MacLachlan recently completed his post-doctoral fellowship at MIT and is now an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia this summer, after declining offers from the well funded US schools. He holds degrees from both the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. He has held NSERC scholarships and fellowships for 8 consecutive years, has published over 20 articles in scientific journals, and was a Canada Scholar. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, drinking coffee and rearranging the clutter on his desk. John McArthur is on leave from his studies at Oxford (where he was pursuing a D.Phil in Economics as a Rhodes Scholar) to work as Research Director at the Harvard Centre for International Development, with CID Director Jeffrey Sachs. At CID, he co-authored the Global Competitiveness Report 2001. Previously John was a student at Harvard (Masters in Public Policy) and the University of British Columbia, where he was named one of the top 10 scholar-athletes by the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union, studying Politics and captaining the varsity swim team. He counts among his notable idiosyncrasies his enjoyment of the New York Times' Op-ed page, and the fact that, despite being raised in Vancouver, he did not learn to ski until moving to Boston at age 22. Eric Miller is an international trade consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC where he is responsible for providing substantive technical advice to various organs of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations and for drafting and revising official FTAA documents. A native of rural Nova Scotia, Miller holds advanced degrees from Carleton University and the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies as well as a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Saint Mary's University. Miller has published numerous articles in English, Spanish, and Turkish in newspapers and journals in North America, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Dwight Newman is a Rhodes scholar-elect pursuing studies in human right law at Oxford. A graduate of the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan (where he was top of his law class), Dwight went on to work as a clerk to Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Antonio Lamer and Justice Louis LeBel. Dwight recently finished working in South Africa in the human rights sector and returned to Canada to work for the Secretariat to the Federal Task Force on Pay Equity in Ottawa. He has published a number of articles in national legal journals, and his article on strip searches has been cited in argument before the Supreme Court. Irfhan Rawji is an experienced analyst at Accenture, which he joined after graduating at the top of his UBC commerce class of 2000. Heavily involved in his university and municipal community while in school, Irfhan was the President of the Commerce Society and the Alma Mater Society Foundation. He currently serves as a board member for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and is president of the Night of Nations Multicultural Society. Based on his extensive extra-curricular involvements, Irfhan continues to lead workshops on the topics of volunteerism, fundraising and youth in Canada at various businesses and institutions, and has been recognized for his accomplishments by Volunteer Vancouver, Maclean's and the Globe and Mail. Jennifer Szalai is currently an Assistant Editor at Harper's Magazine and is living in New York City. Prior to working at Harper's, she was the Deputy Editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies in London, and a research assistant for Thomas Homer Dixon's book The Ingenuity Gap. Jennifer attended the University of Toronto, where she majored in Politics with a specialization in Peace and Conflict Studies. Leaving her native Toronto to pursue graduate studies, she earned a M.Sc. in International Relations at the London School of Economics, thanks to the kindness of the British Council. Samir Sinha is a Rhodes Scholar, currently on leave from his studies towards a medical degree from University of Western Ontario. He is a graduate of both the University of Manitoba and Queen's University, and is widely published in topics ranging from the challenges of healthcare delivery in First Nations communities to Canadian history. He has lived in Senegal, for which he raised money at World Vision, and has worked in First Nations communities in Canada as a health educator. Joel Tennison is an eBusiness professional who works in business development with Malibu Engineering & Software in Calgary, Alberta. Prior to that, Joel completed a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta and co-founded an Internet start-up company, Nexcan Ventures. He has been involved with a variety of community organizations ranging from student politics and Leadership Calgary to Sage Theatre and the Enviros Wilderness School Association. In addition to being a "big fan of technology in almost all its forms," Joel is fluently bilingual, an occasional distance runner and former juggler and street performer. Robyn Tingley is Manager, Public Affairs with Aliant Inc., Atlantic Canada's leading telecommunications and information technology company. A native of Campbellton, New Brunswick, Robyn began her career with NBTel in Saint John in 1997 after completing a Bachelor of Journalism at the University of King's College. Prior to that, Robyn graduated from St. Francis Xavier University where she majored in Psychology, was awarded a Golden 'X' for contribution to community and student life, and graduated as Valedictorian of her class. She has freelanced for several publications and completed an internship at Elle Magazine in New York. Robyn was a member of the award-winning team that led communications for the first successful four-way merger in Canada's telecommunications industry, creating Aliant Inc. Mike Wighton, originally from Victoria B.C., is currently a theatre major at Yale University. At Yale he has founded an experimental theater company, served as President of the Yale Drama Coalition, organized Remembrance Day ceremonies, and worked with a variety of professional theatre personas. Mike spent the fall of 2001 studying theatre in Moscow.