In May, the Innovation Hub celebrated its 10-Year Anniversary by hosting a special event to commemorate all of our past projects, team members, and university partners who’ve supported our journey over the years. In this blog, the leadership team reflects on the event, from the months of planning to the anniversary celebration on May 11th, 2026.
Written by the Innovation Hub Leadership Team
Coming up the stairs to our 10th Anniversary Celebration, the hall outside our gallery was flooded with people long before the event officially began. Team members from our earliest years stood behind the table acting as event volunteers and handing out name badges. A sea of stickers jumped out from glossy nametags, denoting just how many students had contributed to our work. For the Innovation Hub’s 10th Anniversary, it was most important for us to bring people together, and here they were — starting conversations, catching up, and meeting new people.
Our team had spent months alongside several iHub alum planning the “art gallery” concept for the event to showcase our work and impact over the last ten years. But it was also a way for us to create the same sense of community we’re known for during the event itself. Because many of our team members only worked here for a short time, it was the first time for many people to engage with our recent projects. The art gallery helped everyone to be proud of their accomplishments and showed team members from past years how far their work had gone. By the time the remarks began, everyone could appreciate the impact they had. The 10th Anniversary Celebration was one of the largest events we’ve done so far, and we’re so excited to share the experience with you.
Building an iHub Impact Experience
Throughout the event, one exhibit was never empty — the memory capsule. With its colourful strings of double-sided photos, this was our largest exhibit. Inside, guests could reflect on photos from the past 10 years and submit memories in real time to be displayed on a TV screen. Stepping in the capsule proved to be an emotional experience for all of us, and we could tell the guests felt the same. The gently swaying photographs swelled larger with conversation. With this one exhibit alone, we could see evidence that the iHub, at its core, is really about bringing communities together.
Our team put a lot of thought into how we could create an event that would help participants feel the way that iHub creates community and impact in a visible and accessible way. We worked collaboratively on several exhibits. Each took a slightly different approach.
10 Years of iHub Projects
The first exhibit we assembled was the project walkthrough on the glass wall that borders our space. Featuring over 80 reports from 2016 until the present, the exhibit covered nearly all of the panels along the east side of the room. We wanted to display the reports in a way that was visually impactful and inclusive of all of our projects over the years. The display included the original graphic designs from each project and QR codes for each report that led to their respective locations on our website.
iHub Map of Impact
Over the years, we’ve worked with many different departments all across the university, whether for our design research projects, UTQAP evaluations, quick student consultations, or documentaries. To show the impact of the Innovation Hub’s widespread work, we created a map with string extending from the Student Commons and our old workplace in the Koffler Building, where we had been situated for many years. The map and its interconnected web of string represent how our work has touched these many different areas of campus.
Memory Capsule
When we were thinking about the most important thing we wanted our returning team members and partners to remember when they came to this event, it was the community that our work has fostered. The memory capsule represented this with photos from every year of the Innovation Hub, from our very first team meeting to our latest team events. Smiles jumped out from the pictures during past team socials, presentations, workshops, and team photos. This exhibit was the most involved in terms of assembly, as we had to mount the streams to the ceiling. But seeing everyone inside the capsule, turning about with their own smiles reflected at the past, made it all worth it.
Memories to Make the Future
At the back of the room stood our second television screen, and shining from within it was something truly special: memories of those who have participated in our work. During the event, we asked attendees to contribute to our digital memory wall and share their experience of the event. Reading about how the iHub has impacted students’ lives beyond their time at the university is something that sticks with us. It makes us think about how the things we’ve learned as part of our projects are universal. A huge thank you to Kate Bowers form Action Insight for compiling all these memories and representing them in a visually compelling manner. We’ve collected some of these memories here:
I loved working with my team and with our student participants! It really brought out a new facet of university life that I hadn’t experienced before and helped me appreciate the diversity of community, talent, and experience we have on campus.
My experience at the iHub taught me the interpersonal office skills that I struggled to build in the classroom. Having that collaborative framework in the context of a long-term strategic project was invaluable in shaping how I manage my professional life today.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with my fellow students. It was amazing to meet and collaborate with peers across degrees and specialties that I likely never would have met in my usual day-to-day life on campus.
Reflecting on the Last 10 Years Together
Eventually the crowd made their way downstairs and began to gather to enjoy refreshments as they waited for remarks to begin. Past and current team members, partners, and university administrators and staff who had made our work possible over the years were now gathered in one place. This collapse of all the iHub’s eras, the gathering of all generations of iHub teams, was heartwarming to see. Each speaker stepped up to a microphone which was situated between two banners: one with the Innovation Hub’s original logo and brand and the other with the current logo and brand.
We heard remarks from several key people who have been involved with the iHub over the years. The speakers included Julia Allworth (Manager, Innovation Hub), Sandy Welsh (Vice Provost, Students), as well as David Newman and Heather Kelly (Executive Directors of Student Experience & Student Success for Student Life). Hearing the perspectives of senior staff showed us how invested staff are in the student experience and in the iHub’s success. Several past iHub team members also stood up to speak: Alexandra Rodney, Nick Feinig, Sujaya Devi, Paul Kaita, Obinna Ezeani, Gladys Olisaekee, and Ruth Rodrigues. From their stories, the iHub shone as a place of growth.
You can find a recording of the remarks uploaded here in case you missed them, or would like to revisit the day of the celebration:
Hearing the remarks from everyone made us on the current team more appreciative of how far we’ve come. We’d like to thank our speakers for stepping up and sharing their story, for reflecting on what the iHub means to them.
We couldn’t have done this work behind the scenes without the help of our volunteer planning committee made up of past iHub team members who had generously donated their time. The planning committee met several times in the months leading up to the event, resulting in invaluable feedback which shaped the direction of the event. We also want to extend a thank you to those team members who gave us their time and helped with assembling the exhibits; Margaryta Ignatenko, Kate Bowers, and Kaitlyn Corlett to name a few. For us, this shows how the community we’ve created extends beyond team members’ time as employees — and we continue to prioritize maintaining those connections.
Although the 10th anniversary has passed, our projects are all archived on our website. If you didn’t get a chance to check them out during the event, you can still read about our past projects online. In addition, stay tuned for this year’s special 10-year anniversary report where we outline our work from the last 10 years and share the Innovation Hub’s goals for the future.
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