President's Corner is a regular column from President Deep Saini.
Dear Dal Community,
On November 1, Dalhousie launched Here We Code — a digital movement to establish Nova Scotia as one of Canada’s top digital ecosystems in the next five years.
Here We Code is our response to the Province’s investment in several local universities, aimed to significantly expand the digital talent pipeline in Nova Scotia and add further momentum to an already flourishing digital ecosystem in Atlantic Canada.
At Dalhousie, this vital investment will allow us to grow enrolment and graduate over 400 undergraduate students each year. It will also allow us to recruit talent and hire more than 50 new faculty members and researchers over the next five years, many with interdisciplinary expertise.
While this substantial investment will be transformative for the university, our Faculty of Computer Science, and our ability to further our role as the largest centre of technology research and education in Atlantic Canada, the scope of Here We Code extends well beyond Dalhousie.
Here We Code centres on the fact that Dalhousie is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. We will work together with industry, government and our communities to make the most of this unprecedented opportunity for our province to surge ahead in this field, helping to meet the rapidly growing demand for digital expertise in Atlantic Canada.
A central feature of our new strategic plan is the explicit recognition that Dalhousie is a civic university, with our own future success inextricably tied to the success of our province. Furthermore, as a civic university, we have an obligation to strengthen the social and economic wellbeing of Nova Scotia.
Through Here We Code, we will not just recruit more students and faculty members, but we will also open doors for interdisciplinary collaboration across faculties, institutions and sectors. We will engage learners of all ages and from diverse backgrounds and foster an inclusive digital economy that benefits everyone more equitably. And we will help Nova Scotia strengthen its position as a global leader in digital innovation.
The digital culture in Nova Scotia is already strong, and whether you are a member of the Dalhousie community or one of our partners, I hope you will see yourself in Here We Code.
I encourage you to join the movement at herewecode.ca.
Sincerely,
Deep
President Saini can be reached at deep.saini@dal.ca. You can also connect with him on Twitter and Instagram.