Industry speakers will address the evolving role of colleges in Ontario’s innovation strategy. Students and their industry sponsors will share their experiences with the projects they have worked on and describe the economic benefits to the company and the economy.
In addition, federal and Ontario government leaders will speak to the importance of innovation. Speakers from other provinces will offer insights about the key components colleges have found to be successful in creating flourishing applied research partnerships with industry.

The event will be held at the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto on February 15th.

An interesting line-up of plenary speakers is framing the various sessions and panels of the conference. It includes among others Ann Balsamo from the Annenberg School of Communications, whose work focuses on the relationship between culture and technology; Suzanne de Castell from the Faculty of Education at the Simon Fraser University, whose work spans literacy, technology, gender, educational game theory, research, design and development; Natalie Jeremijenko of New York University, whose award winning work explores the opportunity presented by new technologies for non-violent social change; and Steven Mann, a proliferate inventor from the Faculty of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, whose wok includes wearable computing, hydraulophone and the concept of “sousveillance” (“the effects a surveillance device has on others”).

The conference is sold out. However, you can still register for the public opening event titled “Supporting the DIY Citizen: social and legal challenges of online participatory politics and culture”, a dialogue with Henry Jenkins and Corynne McSherry taking place on Thursday, November 11, 5:30PM, Tanz Neuroscience Building, 6 Queen’s Park Crescent, West.

Manara will be presenting a paper on “Sustainability for Critical Thinking & Making Collectives” in the afternoon session of Saturday November 13.

Lift 10 Geneva 3-5 May 2010

Under the conference theme “Connected People” Lift10 will gather one thousand participants in Geneva, Switzerland May 3-5, 2010 to explore the most overlooked aspect of innovation: people.

Known in techno-parlance as users, people ultimately define the success of all technological and entrepreneurial projects. Their approaches are unique, influenced by cultural and generational diversity. The conference aims at exploring the myths and uncover the reality behind the “connected people”.

The conference will host sessions on:

Understanding the different uses of technologies by each generation.
The redefinition of privacy.
The dynamics of online communities.
The myths and realities of online politics.
The future of media.
Mobile platforms, business model design, travel 2.0, creativity, democracy, innovation, etc.

Check the conference program.

Our own Rahaf Harfoush is speaking at the conference.

Regardless how familiar you are with Jeremijenko’s work, you are guaranteed to discover something new and fascinating every time she speaks about her research. This well attended Explorations event was no exception and the ensuing discussion was the perfect preamble to xCAMP that immediately followed.

As organizers of xCAMP we were overwhelmed by and grateful for the interest and support extended to us. Participants brought an amazing scope of knowledge and experience to bear on the issues discussed at xCAMP. The agenda consisted of 3 main segments. In the first segment Natalie presented the xCLINIC concept and showed examples of her related activities. Then Carla Gould from the core organizing group presented a storyboard illustrating the “impatient’s” experience. She was followed by Nabil Harfoush, who took participants through xCLINIC’s foundational elements, their strengths and weaknesses, and proposed a framework for xCLINIC 2.0 aiming at establishing a movement around many xCLINICs.

Open Circle

The second segment consisted of an open circle discussion of the proposed concept followed by 5 break-out sessions that handled:

• The Starter Kit
• Creative Engagement
• Collaboration & Communications
• Alliances & Central Resources
• Benchmarks & Impact Measurements

The break-out sessions were facilitated by a wonderful team: Pam Purves, Greg Judelman, Ryan Coleman, Dan Rose, and Magda Wesolkowska, all of whom are colleagues and friends from the Design with Dialogue collective. We are grateful for their assistance and dedication.

The final segment (called Harvest) consisted of a “market place” type of exchange, where participants circulated among the displayed findings of the 5 break-out groups and added their thoughts and comments, a brief presentations by each group, and a general discussion about findings.

xCAMP generated a significant volume of ideas, solutions and activities road map, which were captured in a variety of ways including flip charts, sticky-note collections, photos and video recording.We have started the arduous task of processing all these outcomes and will be reporting on progress regularly.

Our plans call for establishing 5 permanent working groups to continue working on this project. If you are interested in participating send an email to xclinic@manara.ca with a description of your interest areas and degree of availability for participating in any one of these groups.

Designing with Dialogue (DwD) is a Toronto community of practitioners that gathers monthly to convene dialogue as a practice in social designing for the purposes of engaging the organizations, projects, and civic communities to which we’re committed.

Manara has been participating regularly in DwD sessions as we see the facilitation methods and tools discussed by this practitioners community as a significant component in the wider spectrum of collaborative design tools required for organizational change.

December’s session will be held the second Wednesday, December 11 from 7:00 – 9:00 PM at the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) of OCAD. We are reserving this session to meet as a core group of committed participants interested in taking the DwD community to the next stage of its evolution towards serving the community at large. The December session, as an exception, will be dedicated to continuing the work we started in November for envisioning the plans and agenda for 2010.

From January 2010 on, we will meet the second Wednesday of every month at the Strategic Innovation Lab, OCAD, Toronto.

The keynote speaker is our own Rahaf Harfoush, author of “Yes We Did” who will be talking about the changing face of social media and how these tools can be used to achieve organizational goals.

HealthCare Leaders is most frequently known for its continuing professional education offerings including its annual Leadership Conference in October and Community Care Conference in May, both of  which draw hundreds of participants from all parts of the province. The Association provides several other services for members.

This year’s Leadership Conference will be held on October 19th and 20th at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver, BC. It is titled “Leading Healthcare: Inspire and Achieve” and will be focusing on leadership strategies, complex networks and organizational reform. The full program of the conference can be found here. The Foush will be speaking at the conference on October 20th and will be signing her book Yes We Did

The hard work of the past two decades was recognized earlier this year when the Intelligent Community Forum in New York named Moncton one of the 2009 Top Seven Intelligent Communities in the world. In fact, the Canadian Province of New Brunswick has been identified by the Intelligent Community Forum as a best practice model. This year, two New Brunswick cities, Moncton and Fredericton, are among the 2009 Top Seven Intelligent Communities.

Now Moncton is host to the First Intelligent Communities Summit, where participants will share best practices and brainstorm on the next steps in leveraging technology for community development. These next steps will be designed to help businesses and communities weather economic storms, prosper and improve quality of life.

Rahaf will be the keynote speaker at the Economic Club of Canada luncheon on October 7th. The presentation will be followed by a book signing event for Rahaf’s book Yes We Did.

Helix CEO, Cindy Gordon, provided an interesting overview about Canada’s latest ranking in innovation among OECD countries (we ranked 13 out of 17, which is a D!) and some thoughts on how to support a revival of innovation leadership in North America. Then Kathryn Gibson presented a live demo of the newly launched Helix Innovation Center in Second Life (SL) with a brief guided tour to a number of business properties as well as a sophisticated jazz club in that virtual world. Kathryn is the virtual world Ninja at Helix and has designed an impressive space for the Helix Innovation Center. You can read her blog or follow her on Twitter or better by seeking her outstanding avatar in SL.

Kaline Hax Avatar

In the discussion we learned of several technology initiatives underway, most of them at the pilot stage and exploring various social media applications for building communities including virtual world presence. Major Canadian corporations involved included Rogers, a couple of Canadian banks, and investment firms.

Not many people think of virtual worlds when speaking of social media. Judging by the serious investments being made by a number of technology heavy weights (IBM, Intel etc.) it is safe to predict that this space will witness increasing importance and growth in the near future.

Stay tuned for more as we delve deeper into this aspect of social networks.

The Conference is being held June 14-16 at the Queen’s Landing in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Rahaf will be the keynote speaker and participate in a panel discussion on Sunday June 14th.