Indigenous youth are growing four times faster than Canada’s non-Indigenous population, representing a vital influx of entrepreneurs, innovators, managers and business owners for years to come. But a new RBC report says many are not being fully prepared to seize the opportunities of the country’s rapidly changing economy. 

Building Bandwidth – Preparing Indigenous youth for a digital future found that many Indigenous youth lacked confidence in their digital literacy skills, lagging 13 per cent behind non-Indigenous peers in an RBC Future Launch survey.

The report cites if Indigenous populations were able to participate in the economy at a level matching the average income of the Canadian worker, the country could generate an additional $67 billion in GDP.