Empowering Immigrants in Canada

---

What was your journey like to become a serial entrepreneur and educator?

The entrepreneurial journey is a very interesting one. It has become trendy and everyone is on the entrepreneur bandwagon. For me, the step into entrepreneurship was primarily due to the experiences my father went through. He studied engineering in the UK coming from Sri Lanka and very quickly got into the entrepreneurial landscape. That was when it was not trendy and even looked down upon. Seeing him go through that and looking at the ups and downs of it inspired me. The most precious gift my father shared with me is showing me how to turn dreams into reality. He studied as an engineer but was in the insurance, real estate, and film businesses. He did insurance and real estate in England and did film production in India. His first film won a national film award for best actor, best director, and more. He did such incredible things. It was extremely hard and there were financial ups and downs, but I knew this was who I wanted to become and my father remains my hero, mentor, and friend. 

Growing up, he worked primarily overseas while we were in the UK and Canada. When I turned 20, he had his first of three heart attacks and I found myself overseas learning and understanding the business. That experience ingrained in me more of that entrepreneurial energy that I have come to love.

Education has been a big focus for my family coming to Canada as immigrants, and it still remains the best way for you to establish yourself in this country. Education is key to moving up within an organization or within society. I always try to educate myself whether formally or not. I did my MBA in Bangladesh but also informally learned from key mentors and leaders in the community. 

When I came back to Canada, I took a role as Director for International Business Development at a fintech firm and met the owner of Computek College at the time. He was looking to get out of the business. He said that while this was a business, you need to have a passion for education and serving the community. I had been doing a lot of community work and figured this was a good opportunity so I jumped on it and this year, we are celebrating 30 years at Computek College.

---

How did your experience as an immigrant inform your entrepreneurial journey and how would you characterize the contribution of immigrants to Canada’s economy? 

My parents made the majority of the sacrifices coming here. As a child and an immigrant, there were obviously challenges for me where I was in a totally new environment and needed to figure things out very quickly, but my parents made the sacrifices. My father was a qualified engineer and my mother worked and studied in the UK as a nurse. When she came to Canada, they did not accept her credentials. She had to go back to school and in fact was in university at the same time I was, in one of my classes. Again, education is important and age is not a factor in education.

My experiences as an immigrant were interesting because at that time, even though I saw the struggles that my parents were going through, I also believed that because my father studied engineering elsewhere, he was not on par with engineers in Canada. It was only after working overseas for 13 years did I really understand. Bangladesh, for example, set up infrastructure for mobile technology and that technology grew in leaps and bounds, becoming better than what Canada had. Bangladeshi telecom engineers and experts were far ahead of the ones in Canada. However, when they would immigrate to Canada, they had to drive cabs or work in factories or fast food joints because they did not have Canadian experience. This is a missed opportunity for those individuals and for Canada, as well as mental torture for immigrants. 

Immigrants make massive contributions to the Canadian economy. There is a massive gap that Canada needs to focus on closing in terms of the immigrant communities and the Canadian economy. Statistically, the US does well because of its population. There are so many factors but population is key. We need more people in Canada that can contribute to the economy and immigrants coming to Canada have great education and experience, but there is a gap from companies learning how to maximize their talents. Individuals coming to Canada also need to recognize that there are learning opportunities here that have to be taken. 

Canada, especially in cities like Toronto, is more diverse than Bangladesh. If someone from the Bangladeshi telecom industry comes to Canada, they also have to learn how to sit in a room and talk to Canadians, Mexicans, people from China, and more in a diverse working environment. There is learning needed on both sides but Canada, unlike any other country, has a great opportunity because all these communities are learning to work together and communicate with each other. That learning is going to help us address the bigger problems we face globally.

---

How can Canada lead by example as diversity and globalization continue around the world? 

As countries try to understand what it means to be diverse and inclusive, Canada is already doing that and has to do that. We have these pockets in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area of communities that have grown. Look at the food landscape and how these different flavours have combined to create the rich and unique cuisine of Toronto. The next generation of immigrants are mixing flavours that they grew up with into this new creation and it is absolutely wonderful. The same thing is happening in conversations pertaining to different issues, such as getting more women at senior levels in the workplace. We can now have these conversations with more diverse experiences reflected from different countries, bringing unique solutions to the table. 

There is also an opportunity for Canada to export this knowledge. I am involved with a non-profit called comdu.it. Canada is one of the countries with the most volunteers. At comdu.it, instead of just facilitating different communities going to volunteer in Sri Lanka for example, we tap into the diaspora here and encourage them to go volunteer back in their home country. There is an Australian non-governmental organization doing work in Mannar, Sri Lanka. With great intentions, they were doing magnificent work, but it was white Australians who were going there. They were not able to connect with the community. They had a two-year plan for this project and at comdu.it, we connected them with two urban planners from Canada and Norway who spoke Tamil, the language in Mannar. These two people went to Mannar and that two-year project saw successes within six months. Similarly, there are a lot of things that need to happen in other parts of the world, and Canada has an opportunity. Through great resources and knowledge, the diaspora in Canada can give back to their homeland and help Canada build relationships with those countries. The current government is looking to expand that in terms of trade and other initiatives, and Canada is well-positioned for that.

---

What do you think needs to be done in Canada and by who to empower immigrants and their contributions to Canada’s economy? 

There is a massive opportunity for government and industry to partner. There are so many immigrants coming to Canada and will continue to come to Canada. Canada is one of the best places to live in the world, but we need to really focus our policies and direction on what we are promising immigrants and how we are going to deliver that. 

At Computek, we focus on mature students. They are generally aged 35 to 45 and have families. They already have great experience and education, but we need to ask if we are successfully connecting international students with the right job opportunities. There are a lot of opportunities in Northern Ontario or other parts of Canada like the Prairies. There are massive opportunities across the country but generally, immigrants are still focused on central core areas and we need to bridge that gap. We need to focus on presenting these opportunities in their home country. For instance, we can drive awareness campaigns for opportunities in North Bay, for example, and partner with industry to ensure that there is an understanding that as this immigrant comes from India, they recognize they are coming in with an opportunity specifically in North Bay. The individual will understand that there is some sustainability in terms of their livelihood and that they have a job opportunity locked in. There need to be greater incentives for immigrants as they come over. 

The information technology and health sectors are huge and have greater need, so we can specifically target immigrants for those opportunities. We also need to recognize the opportunities that are being taken away due to automation and artificial intelligence. For example, at Computek, a lot of our students in the past were looking at bank teller positions as a stepping stone into the banking sector. However, today banks will tell customers to do things online or go to the ATM and perform their own transactions. Bank teller positions are traditionally given to entry-level youth, women coming back into the workforce, and recent immigrants. At Computek, we address two of the three demographics: 75% of our student base are women and we also focus on recent immigrants. If that bank teller position disappears, where and how do those people get into these industries? I am a big fan of technology and there are huge opportunities there, but educational institutions have a responsibility to help educate our citizens and immigrants into the right sectors. Government and industry also have a responsibility to develop partnerships to assist in this process.

We have had many foreign-trained physicians come to Computek. We do not teach medicine at Computek College; we focus on business, healthcare, technology, and diploma programs and training for entry-level positions in industry. These are supposed to be steppingstones for our students in these industries. There is no reason for foreign-trained physicians to be coming to Computek College. We had a trained paediatrician from the Philippines who left Canada for the Bahamas because, although she trained with us as a medical office administrator, she was trying to get into hospitals and find a respectable position for herself. The key is respectable positions. She was not able to get that so she went back to the Bahamas. 

This is a mistake. The current government has done a great job in attracting foreign talent, but there is so much work that needs to be done in terms of connecting foreign talent with respectable job opportunities. This is not just on the government; industry also needs to step up as it is a system-wide problem.

---

What would you pitch in a minute to immigrants and immigrant entrepreneurs to empower them?

Immigrants have all the strong characteristics of entrepreneurs. A lot of them come from very little if not nothing. They come to Canada with no opportunities and have to network from the ground up. The doors are constantly closed for them but they keep going and persevering. 

One of the major things we focus on at Computek is ensuring that immigrants are reminded that they have those core strengths. Remember who you are. A lot of what it takes to come as an immigrant to Canada is really hard and not everybody can do that. If you take that same strength and skills and put it towards finding better employment, the right schools for your kids, and more, you will succeed. 

We all have it in us and we just have to remember to find that strength. Find good people to network with and who are going to support you and you will succeed. There is a lot of learning to be done on the industry side to recognize the value of immigrants but there is also a responsibility on the side of immigrants to learn in this new environment that is Canada.