Roundtable host: Ilija Jovanovic

Mining the Future: Forging an Automation-Ready Workforce Development Strategy for Critical Minerals and Cleantech

Canada has established ambitious national strategies for AI, cleantech, and critical minerals. However, the mining sector—foundational to all three—faces a specialized talent crisis that threatens to stall innovation and jeopardize these objectives. Robotics and automation are the enabling technologies that will allow these national plans to be executed, providing the physical systems—from autonomous drills to remote-controlled haulage—required to modernize the industry. However, the lack of a comprehensive talent pipeline for these roles is a critical bottleneck. This roundtable will focus on designing the human infrastructure essential for bridging the automation gap in Canada's mining sector: a comprehensive, end-to-end talent pipeline.

We invite leaders from mining, cleantech, and robotics to blueprint a program that will directly fuel our national strategies through workforce development, focusing on three stages: 

1. Outreach: creating initiatives like national robotics competitions to steer young innovators toward Canada's AI and Robotics strategies within a mining context;
2. Capture: developing recruitment funnels for the specialists needed to implement our Cleantech agenda and optimize critical mineral extraction; 
3. Commitment: building a framework where industry access to cleantech and critical mineral funding is tied to firm commitments to hire and deploy this new generation of experts.

The goal is to forge an actionable plan that provides the Canadian mining sector with the human capital it needs to innovate and lead. Expected outcomes include:

• A Foundational Blueprint for a National Talent Pipeline: A high-level, three-stage framework for Outreach, Capture, and Commitment that will serve as the conceptual basis for a future program blueprint.
• Consensus on Program Champions: A list of potential partners and a shared understanding of the types of organizations (e.g., industry associations, educational institutions, government bodies) needed to champion each stage of the pipeline.

Prioritized Actionable Recommendations: A short list of high-impact recommendations and the key themes that will inform the development of future policy.