The Innovation Hub is pleased to share its 10-Year Anniversary Report, which spans our work from 2016-2026. In this post, Innovation Hub Manager Julia shares some highlights from the past 10 years, the Innovation Hub’s biggest accomplishments so far, and how to get involved in the work.
Written by Julia Allworth, Manager, Innovation Projects
The Innovation Hub launched at the University of Toronto in 2016 with two simple yet powerful questions: who are our students? How is the world changing for them? Ten years later we are still working in community to explore big questions.
I am so grateful to celebrate our 10-year anniversary with the people who have made our work possible: students, staff, faculty, our campus partners, and alumni. There has always been a certain magical feeling to our work, and I’ve come to appreciate that the magic happens because of the hundreds of people who have contributed to it.
I am so proud of all of our student teams who over the last ten years have completed almost one hundred design thinking projects, including producing four documentary shorts, contributing to dozens of academic unit-level quality assurance reviews, and supporting the design of new spaces such as the Robarts Library fourth floor study space, the Clara Benson pool gallery student lounge, and more. Our teams have also contributed to real campus impact through participation in the Presidential and Provostial Task Force on Student Mental Health, and other important university policy initiatives.
While we hope the care and value for excellence we put into our work shines through, it is impossible for any project to shine as bright as the students and graduates who have been part of our teams over the years. Our alumni are working in all industries across the globe, each making change. I’m most proud whenever I hear that someone’s work at the Innovation Hub helped them to land their dream job or helped them get promoted. I’ve been so fortunate to learn so much from each and every one of our team members.
We look forward with hope and optimism as we celebrate our 10th year as the university prepares for its bicentennial in 2027. We will continue to innovate, build new programs, and explore increasingly complex problems with the curious and co-creative spirit we’ve developed together.
Our Impact Since 2016
Since our inception in 2016, we’ve had the pleasure to connect with people in all areas of U of T to learn more about campus experiences through our design research projects. To date we have:
- Completed 88 design research projects
- Listened to 1950+ students’ stories & experiences
- Listened to 975+ staff & faculty stories & experiences
The People Behind the iHub
The students at the Innovation Hub are diverse and come from all programs and degree levels. Students are placed on project teams that provide real-world experiential learning to build skills in four areas: personal development, interpersonal relations, workplace skills and technical skills in design thinking.
While design thinking projects are important at the iHub, it’s the people who have built this place from the ground up that make it what it is today. Team members come from every faculty and background, from first-year undergrad through upper-year PhD. It’s that interdisciplinary mix of perspectives that makes our work, and our people, so unique and special. Here’s where a couple of our alumni from the very first year are working now and what they have to say about their time with us:
Alexandra Rodney, iHub 2016-2017 — Director, Project Management Office, Ministry of Health, Government of Ontario: “It helped me to imagine possibilities beyond the narrow career path I was on to become an academic. It also gave me a toolkit of skills — design thinking, project work, leadership — that were marketable to employers.”
Margaryta Ignatenko, iHub 2016-2018 — Strategic Initiatives & Project Manager, I-Think: “The collaboration skills I gained because of the Innovation Hub continue to serve me… There is such value in human-centered problem solving, especially in a world inundated with AI.”
Innovation Hub Projects Over the Years
Early Innovation Hub
The earliest years of the Innovation Hub were full of radical collaboration. We launched the Innovation Hub on May 16th at Chestnut Residence, where we had over 260 students, staff and faculty gather to explore the mindset of innovation. During the launch event, we discussed how we could bring innovation to the student experience at the University of Toronto. Those ideas turned into collaborative discussion through Innovation Hours, Ambassador meetings, Share Back Days, and our Insights and Ideas Presentation. With just 5 students on our team at the time, it was really rewarding to make so many community connections in that first year.
Creating Scalable Impact
Following that first year, we knew that the Innovation Hub had the potential to reach a wider audience at the university. Through the 5 Big Ideas project, we consulted, ideated, and prototyped from our original Insights & Ideas with cross-disciplinary teams and the community to explore what would have to be true for each idea to come to life at U of T. We also moved to a consulting model by partnering with U of T divisions to deeply understand experiences within their communities. After two years of the Innovation Hub running as a pilot project, we completed our Pilot Project Review, where we shared our co-created domains of innovation and outlined a future vision for the iHub.
Collaborating in a Pandemic
During the pandemic, we moved all our work online. Although we experienced many changes and challenges, we also discovered new ways of fostering connectedness during uncertain times. We compiled a report called “What Matters to U of T Students?” with all of our student data from 2016-2021, celebrated the opening of the new Robarts 4th floor, and launched several projects meant to support students and faculty during a period of change. Some of these projects included our Stories from a Distance weekly series, UTQAP, Transforming the Instructional Landscape with Tech2U, and a multi-year partnership with Health and Wellness.
A Physical ‘Hub’ for Innovation
As campus opened back up, we were delighted to have a physical place for our work. Our makerspace at the UTSU Student Commons Building allowed us to come together and do our design thinking work in community. Our physical space also allowed us to run more community events and to grow our team, way more than we might have imagined at the start. Our 2023-24 team had over 100 student employees!
Storytelling with Design Thinking
Our partnerships with the Centre for International Experience, Accessibility Services, and Family Care Office opened new ways of storytelling through documentary and user experience projects. These projects highlighted the student experiences in a new way that went beyond our research reports. During this time, we had the opportunity to work on projects that genuinely helped under-represented student groups. Through UI/UX and documentary projects, our teams moved from reports to create different, long-standing resources to help students find belonging at the university for years to come.
Looking Towards the Future
With 10 years of design research experience, we’ve seen and heard so many student stories. But the university is an ever-evolving place — and student needs are always changing. We imagine a future where our teams continue to work together to apply design thinking to complex challenges that impact students. We’re excited to continue to find new and innovative ways to document and share student stories and support the university’s priorities.
Get Involved in Our Work
If you have a project that might benefit from a student design thinking team at the Innovation Hub, we’d love to talk to you! If you have any questions about the Innovation Hub or how to get involved, contact innovationhub@utoronto.ca for more information.
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