In 2025, Prepr made meaningful contributions to Canada’s workforce development landscape. We were present where decisions get made, around policy tables, innovation forums, and global summits.
Across the year, our work and partnerships concentrated on these major themes:
- Co-designing the future of the workforce development ecosystem with sector councils, business networks, higher education and governments across Canada, European Union (EU), and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
- Strengthening pathways from learning to employment
- Empowering learning leaders
- Advancing AI and innovation for workforce development and commercialization
- Learning from International Models to scale impact measurement
This work requires collaborators who truly believe in systems innovation to progress and advance, and we are grateful for the opportunity to have built an active and engaging consortium of partners, globally, who are forthcoming to come to the table and challenge the status quo.
Building the Future of the Workforce Development Ecosystem
We are seeing a trend towards skills-based hiring and upskilling programs with applied learning and credentialing at their core. There are still gaps globally on how well industry collaborates with academia to make relevant and timely learning experiences that prepare youth for the future of work. In 2025, Prepr had opportunities to be a part of building those systems and infrastructure. Similarly, there is a growing need to be able to re-skill and upskill the existing workforce as technology and geo-political pressures impact how businesses shape and grow.
This year, Prepr was at many national and international workforce development, research and policy forums organized by our partners at CERIC, HRPA, CEWIL, First Work, Magnet, EBN, Future Talent Council, among others, helping shape how we think about skills-based hiring, work-integrated learning, upskilling and reskilling initiatives.
As a result of this work, we developed and launched two new tools on our workforce development & innovation platform, PreprLabs: the Job Opportunity Network and Learning Paths. These tools let learners see clear career routes, help employers make skills-based hires, allow for learning paths to connect with career growth and give partners access to core capabilities to amplify their impact and the effectiveness of existing workforce development programs and curriculum. In an AI-driven job market, speed matters, and these tools shorten the gap between training and employment.
A key advancement came through our work on the Impact Measurement Blueprint, an initiative supported by the Government of Canada. Prepr engaged 56+ public-sector and ecosystem contributors in research and dialogue, testing two assessment formats tailored for both early-stage and mature organizations. The goal: build a shared framework to track, compare, and scale impact measurement approaches that work.
This was brought to life at the IMB Partner Summit in July, co-hosted with our research partner Goss Gilroy Inc. Everyone aligned on: What are we tracking? And why does it matter? Over two days, we facilitated cross-sector connections among representatives from our partners like ACCES Employment, Serco, EHRC, Food Processing Skills Canada, The Career Foundation, First Work, Magnet, among others.
In September, Prepr hosted Minister Patty Hajdu’s CBC press conference unveiling $26.1 million in youth employment funding. During the announcement, Minister Hajdu pointed to our Flexible Upskilling Network (F.U.N.™) Program as a leading example of effective youth workforce development. Her message affirmed our shared focus: Canada needs more organizations building practical and scalable upskilling pathways to employment, not more pilot programs.
Connecting Talent to Opportunity
A key part of that pathway is the impact that is made when job seekers meet employers ready to hire differently, when partners share what’s working, and when people show up in person to build something together.
At the press conference with Minister Patty Hajdu, Caitlin McDonough, Prepr’s Chief Learning Officer and co-founder, shared Jobert’s story, a F.U.N.™ participant who, after joining the program, transitioned from factory work into a tech career with the help of mentorship and hands-on experience. His story is just one example of how F.U.N.™ and related programs help youth overcome barriers and move into meaningful, future-ready employment.
In October, we hosted Career Connect 2025, a dynamic career fair opportunity for our F.U.N.™ graduates to engage in structured interactions with employers. For them, it was a launching point. For employers, it was proof that there is strong digital talent when you know where to look.
For Prepr, these journeys are exactly why F.U.N.™ has been a flagship program for over five years: it bridges our challenge-based learning approach with work-integrated learning experiences, creating real preparation, real practice, and real opportunity for youth facing barriers.
These journeys also illustrate what happens when ecosystems are designed to connect learners, employers, and community partners around shared outcomes, reinforcing the very impact that national investments in youth employment aim to unlock.
Empowering Learning Leaders
In 2025, Prepr doubled down on sharing what works with those building the future of work on the ground within their organizations.
Caitlin McDonough, Chief Learning Officer along with Peter Szyslo, Research Lead, delivered national workshops and webinars on varied topics, including Skills for Success and our Impact Measurement Blueprint (IMB™) initiative.
These sessions gave learning leaders, HR managers, and service providers practical tools to apply inside their organizations, fostering measurable outcomes and deeper collaboration across Canada’s learning ecosystem.
As learning leaders gained tools to drive impact, another urgent focus emerged nationwide: preparing the workforce for AI adoption. While digital skills had become a baseline, the ability to apply AI tools meaningfully at work was now essential.
Advancing AI and Innovation
Canada has the research and talent to lead in AI, but education and workforce adoption remains uneven. In 2025, Prepr worked with a consortium of partners across the country to lay the groundwork for establishing a framework to closing that gap leveraging existing investments and infrastructures co-developed by government and industry.
At ALL IN 2025 in Montréal, Prepr’s CEO and founder, Salar Chagpar, joined 6,000 attendees to engage in a shared vision: that the future of AI will be built here, by our talent, with our values. This was reinforced by Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation!
Canada helped invent modern AI. The Government of Canada is committed to helping build the future with it—by Canadians, for Canadians, and for the world.
But building that future requires closing workforce gaps now. This year, Prepr pushed for AI fluency as a baseline skill, not a tech-role luxury.
We advanced a unified AI Fluency Workforce Solution, recognized as a Canada-wide workforce standard by the Diversity Institute. We also launched four functional AI Lab tracks—Product, Growth, Sales, and HR—giving teams hands-on experience applying AI to real projects with immediate, workplace-ready outcomes.
Our CEO then joined panels at Magnet Network Live Spotlights across Canada (St. John’s, Winnipeg, and Edmonton). At each stop, Salar emphasized that real AI adoption begins with strong data and digital foundations. At its core, AI leadership is about empowering people, not just deploying technology.
Learning from International Models
Prepr expanded its global presence in 2025, gaining insights from innovation ecosystems across three continents. Our CEO represented us and Canada at:
- EBN Congress (Spain): A gathering of Europe’s leading business incubators. He joined discussions on bridging commercialization with workforce development, especially in emerging industries.
- Future Talent Council (Abu Dhabi): As an official delegate, he shared insights on AI-driven upskilling, innovation ecosystems, and workforce transformation, and explored collaborative solutions to prepare the next generation of talent for a rapidly changing world.
In addition, we deepened our global collaboration through membership in the ENRICH GLOBAL community. This partnership opens new opportunities for Canadian and European partners to co-develop solutions, exchange expertise, and scale innovation together.
Looking Ahead
As we close out 2025, we are grateful to every partner, employer, learner, and collaborator who continues to support our endeavour year after year. This year reinforced a simple lesson: impact scales when learning, technology, and partnerships are designed as connected systems. You cannot solve workforce challenges with great training if there’s no pathway to jobs. You cannot build employer trust without honest impact measurement. And you cannot sustain innovation without partners who are in it for the long haul.
At Prepr, we’ll continue showing up, sharing what works, and strengthening what connects. Together, we will continue to evolve into an innovation and learning foundation, turning today’s pilots into tomorrow’s systems, and making opportunities more accessible for everyone.
