Improving the campus experience at the University of Toronto through student-led design
By Apefa Adjivon, Innovation Hub Connector
Hello! My Name is Apefa Adjivon, and I am the current connector for the Innovation Hub. I have the great privilege of introducing myself and the I-hub team to you! Since August, we’ve all been spending time getting to know each other and working with one another to improve the student experience. Everyone on the team is extremely dedicated to their work, and excited to serve their peers and the greater UofT community.
So, starting with myself…
By Shonakshi Chaubal, University of Toronto’s Hult Prize Campus Director
The Hult Prize is the world’s largest student case competition for social entrepreneurs. In partnership with the United Nations, the Hult Prize Foundation hosts college and university events around the world in search of the next game-changing start-up. Each year, the Hult Prize awards one million dollars in start-up funding to the team of students that develops the most radical and breakthrough idea to solve one of our world’s toughest social challenges. The goal of the competition is to foster social entrepreneurship among the brightest, youngest minds across the world, and each year, wonderful solutions are developed and presented.
By Alexandra Rodney, Operations Team
The Innovation Hub is pleased to announce that the following Co-Curricular Record approved volunteer positions are available for students at the Innovation Hub for the Fall/Winter 2017/2018 academic terms. These positions will provide a rich learning experience to support students’ career development including training, practical opportunities to apply learning, coaching and feedback. In addition to this great learning experience, students will have the opportunity to be part of an engaging and inclusive community of diverse students. Students may join one of the eight teams in the Innovation Hub detailed below:
By Clara Luca, Innovation Leader, Innovation Hub
This summer, I was hired to join the 2017 summer student team at the Innovation Hub. I worked with the UofT community to workshop and research the UofT Neighborhood Communities and UofT Concierge prototype ideas. I also had the opportunity to attend workshops and events around campus as well as several great training sessions to advance my knowledge of design thinking and develop my leadership skills. I also worked with the team as we created an amazingly colourful #DisplayYourPride piece. I’m so pleased to be continuing with the Innovation Hub into the Fall/Winter. Our team is growing and the Innovation Hub is now accepting applications for the 2017-18 team!
By the Innovation Hub’s Knowledge Management Leader Michelle Johnstone, and our Implementation Leader Clara Luca
On June 5th and 9th, the Innovation Hub invited students, faculty, and staff across U of T to offer feedback on our six prototyped project ideas. Toencourage participants to provide direct, meaningful feedback, they were arranged into focus group-like arrangements to ideate and co-create the prototypes which interested them most.
By Margaryta Ignatenko, Innovation Hub Team
At the core of the Innovation Hub is the desire to make the University of Toronto a place where all students experience a sense of community and connectedness. In our work, we use a design methodology that takes inclusivity into consideration. We are thrilled about events such as #DisplayYourPride which celebrate the diversity of our University of Toronto community!
By the Innovation Hub Implementation Leaders: Gabriele Simmons, Vincent Tu and Clara Luca as well as Max Tojicic a second year student participant at the retreat.
As Innovation Hub Implementation Team Leaders, Clara, Vincent and I (Gabriele), had the chance to attend Student Life’s Re-Imagining Leadership Retreat in Peterborough – it was a fantastic opportunity! We got to meet other student leaders like ourselves at the retreat and develop skills in collaboration, innovation and thinking “outside of the box”. We met a fantastic collection of people from across the tri-campuses and gained both new friends and new perspectives! Here are some of the highlights…
By Alexandra Rodney, Operations Team Leader
Since February, the Innovation Hub had the good fortune of serving as the “client” for the Business Leadership class at John Polanyi Collegiate Institute. This class is made up of Grade 11 and 12 students who, each semester, apply integrative thinking tools to help an organization solve a difficult problem. For the Innovation Hub, the students were tasked with the question of how to increase student engagement at the University of Toronto. The Business Leadership students were taught how to use integrative thinking tools by their teacher Rahim Essabhai (who recently won a Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence!) and Nogah Kornberg (of Rotman’s I-Think initiative). The students had the opportunity to visit the university on several occasions to interview students and Innovation Hub staff members as well as observe student life on campus.
By: William Pullen, Innovation Hub Summer Team Member, second year political science and history student.
Last Friday, the Innovation Hub’s Summer Team had the pleasure of attending Rotman I-Think’s Celebration of Learning. The event was centered around the incredible work that has been occurring in K-12 classrooms that have embraced Integrative Thinking. The event also celebrated the teachers that helped bring integrative thinking into their classrooms.
By: Michelle Johnstone, Knowledge Management Team, first year Masters of Information student.
Last Wednesday, the Innovation Hub Summer Student Team met for the first time. It was the first (truly) nice day of spring, and we got right down to business and took each other on a “reverse campus tour,” in which each of us showed our new team members a spot on campus that was meaningful to us.