Thank you. I would be very pleased to speak a bit more about what we have done to go contact-free. Of course, we ourselves are also offering virtually our programs and services normally delivered in person, but I think you are asking more about how we are helping our clients to move in that direction.
We do have a number of offerings for them, including virtual trade missions. We have changed the Canadian technology accelerators and made them virtual. In fact, that has resulted in opening up and lowering the barrier to entry for a number of Canadian companies. If we think about a virtual trade mission, we see that companies that normally might not have had the resources or the time to travel to South Korea are able to join a virtual trade mission much more easily.
We think of a young woman entrepreneur who perhaps has children and is unable to get away for a week or 10 days to travel with the minister. Although we lose some of those corridor conversations and face-to-face interactions, of course, at the same time these kinds of services are open to a much broader audience, and we're very proud of that.
Two nights ago, on Wednesday, the minister launched the virtual trade mission to Korea, with 157 participants, I think. I can get the exact number. I can't think of an example at any time in the past when that number of companies might have been able to participate.
I have just been informed that it was 170. I can't think of a time in the past when we would have taken 170 companies on a trade mission. Certainly, that is a very good example.
I might also just talk in terms of specific supports to our companies and the money that we actually have available to help them. That is through the CanExport program, which normally provides over $33 million a year to Canadian SMEs, innovators and others. Since the start of the pandemic, the CanExport program has provided over $20 million to more than 500 Canadian companies looking to diversify their export market. They allow these folks to access all kinds of new services, including hiring folks to help them with their online and digital programs and to access e-commerce platforms, IP assistance, cybersecurity assistance and a number of other things.
The gentleman who manages that program for us is here with us today, and that is Christopher Thornley. If I may, I'll pass it to him to just talk about the specifics of that program and some examples.