Strategic Foresight students' Remembrance project

Logo for Reset Remembrance Project
Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - 4:45pm

Last year, four OCAD University graduate students in the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program were stunned to discover that 16% of homeless people on Toronto’s streets and in shelters served in the military. This spark led Kelly Kornet, Krittika Sharma, Ron Memmel and William Georg to spend weeks researching this issue to try to understand the struggles that veterans face after their release from the military.

This year the team is asking Canadians - and everyone else - to move beyond remembrance and to learn about the struggle veterans face when returning to civilian life.

The project attempts to inform and walk the public through the military journey in order to shed light on the reality of what military personnel experience in the field. The team has worked on a potential solution to help veterans transition back from military life to civilian life and provides a visual map that shows the journey of soldiers transitioning from civilian culture to military culture and back to civilian culture again.

The project and campaign can be accessed though:

www.resetremembrance.ca

www.twitter.com/re_remembrance

www.facebook.com/resetremembrance

 

Strategic Foresight & Innovation receives Canadian Race Relations Foundation recognition

Thursday, November 6, 2014 - 5:00am

OCAD University’s Strategic Foresight & Innovation (SFI) Master of Design program has received an honourable mention from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) Awards of Excellence for SFI’s “Designed Diversity” program and practice.

“Designed Diversity is a practice we developed in the SFI program — an intentional act of designing the diversity of our cohorts, faculty, curriculum content and its delivery,” explained OCAD University Assistant Professor Nabil Harfoush. “This practice is rooted in the recognition that in order to be innovative and to solve complex problems you need to maximize diversity in every dimension. It shifts the discourse about diversity from a moral/ethical imperative to a fundamental requirement for the success of any organization in innovation and renewal.”

The CRRF Awards of Excellence pays tribute to public, private and voluntary organizations whose efforts represent best practices in building awareness and understanding of Canadian values and identity that are reflective of Canadian diversity and respectful race relations. Best practices represent programs, strategies or initiatives that have demonstrated promise, success and social impact.

“We applaud the stellar work that is being done by all the organizations, as they strive towards the fulfillment of the Canadian values of respect for equality, diversity, inclusivity and belonging,” said Toni Silberman, Chair, CRRF Awards of Excellence Jury Panel.

The Awards of Excellence dinner will take place on November 18 at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. The Awards dinner is part of the Foundation's biennial symposium, which is dedicated to Canadian values, identity and belonging, along with the mutuality of citizenship rights and responsibilities.

The SFI program’s Designed Diversity Best Practice initiative will become part of the CRRF’s
ongoing program of building awareness and understanding of Canadian values and identity that are reflective of Canadian diversity.

View a complete list of CRRF Awards of Excellence winners.

SKETCH NOTES RECAP TEDXOCADU

Lindy Wilkins speaks. View more photos by Mark Bennett and Stacey Croucher on the TEDxOCADU website.
Patricia Kambitsch's graphic recording of Britt Wray's TEDxOCADU's talk.
Sacha Chua's sketchnote of Sara Diamond's TEDxOCADU's talk.

Miss the inaugural TEDxOCADU? The sold-out event, held January 19 in the auditorium at 100 McCaul, can be viewed as a series of visual recaps on theTEDxOCADU website. Sketchnote artist Sacha Chua summarized each speaker’s talk in hand-drawn synopses, while Patricia Kambitsch captured the talks as graphic recordings. Videos of the talks will be added soon.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, the independently organized TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) event was curated by Medina Abdelkader, an OCAD U MDes candidate in Strategic Foresight and Innovation, together with a hard-working team of 25 other coordinators.

“It was phenomenal to see everything come together the way it did,” says Abdelkader. “I’m so inspired by this group of people – the speakers, performers, emcees, visual recorders, organizers – who dedicated hours and hours of their time to put this together."

TEDxOCADU featured talks by Dr. Sara Diamond, OCAD U’s President, along with: Eric Boyd, Zahra Ebrahim, Trevor Haldenby, Alex Leitch, David Lewis-Peart, Mike Lovas, Andrew Lovett-Barron, Arianne Shaffer, Lukas Stark, Lindy Wilkins and Britt Wray. Abdelkader’s team worked with the speakers, workshopping their talks well in advance to prepare. “The amount of work the speakers put in to build their talks was nothing short of incredible,” she says

This year’s theme was “simplexity,” the delicate tango between simplicity and complexity representing the vulnerabilities and strengths born from increasingly diverse circumstances. Speakers were selected for proposals of big ideas with the potential to change the world. According to Abdelkader, these ideas reflect a shared human experience and resonate with audiences.

Delegates also had to prove themselves by applying to attend. To choose, Abdelkader’s team blacked out names and based decisions on thoughtful, meaningful answers. It came down to what each person said, not who they were, or their position in the university.

Along with the talks, the event featured performances by Melanon (musicians Lodewijk Vos and Joseph Murray together with singer Little Scream) and spoken word artist Quentin Vercetty.

TED is an international non-profit organization that started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago. It invites the world’s leading thinkers to speak for 18 minutes and broadcasts the talks free at TED.com

The TEDxOCADU team is already discussing how to build on their successes (and lessons learned) in coordinating another event for next year.

Ryan Church, Nihal Ahmed shortlisted in Ivey Business Plan Competition

Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - 4:45pm

A team composed of OCAD University Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI) students Ryan Church and Nihal Ahmed, and Schulich School of Business, Health Industry Management Program students Jason Lin, Dr. Justin Chopra and Srivatsan Vijayakumar, made it to the shortlist in the IBK Capital Ivey Business Plan Competition in January.

Over 50 teams entered the premier graduate student business plan competition, with 12 teams shortlisted. Entrepreneurial teams were drawn from top graduate schools across North America. The competition offers students an opportunity to present innovative business plans to potential investors, offering them an advance look at up-and-coming entrepreneurs and new ventures. 

Leveraging the existing Angel Sensor hardware, the team created Ripple Labs Inc. to develop their product, Circle of Love, a wearable, waterproof, medical band that tracks vital signs and statistics using Bluetooth and Smartphone technology. 

In addition to tracking vital statistics, Circle of Love also has an accelerometer for the purpose of detecting a fall, and a call function connecting the user with a loved one or a personal support worker.

The OCAD U SFI students focused on design thinking, horizon scanning and user flow, while the Schulich students focused on SWOT analysis and the necessary financials. While the they didn’t win the competition, the OCAD U/Schulich team received serious investment interest from one of the judges, and was honoured to be among the shortlist group.

The OCAD U/Schulich connected originally through an SFI/Schulich collaborative design challenge called Boomers to Zoomers:  Re-Designing Health Care for our Coming of Age, which kicked off in November, and proved to be the catalyst for the team’s concept. The team then fast-tracked product development in order to enter the Ivey Competition. The team is now focusing on their final preparations in the Boomers to Zoomers challenge, for which final designs will be revealed at an event on April 23 at MaRS Discovery District.

Graduate students win international recognition from Association of Professional Futurists

Thursday, June 26, 2014 - 3:30pm

Students from OCAD University’s Strategic Foresight & Innovation (SFI) graduate program picked up four awards at the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) 2014 Student Recognition Competition this month. Entries came from 26 universities around the world, including teams from Australia, India and Finland. The AFP represents professional futurists — people who study the future in order to help global corporations, small businesses, consultancies, education, non-profits and governments prepare for and gain advantage from coming changes.

The competition aims to recognize students who do outstanding work in futures studies. Associate Professor Suzanne Stein organized OCAD U’s student individual and team submissions, including work from both the SFI program and OCAD U’s Digital Futures program. The student work came out of the Foresight Studio, co-instructed by Stein and Assistant Professor Stuart Candy, as well as an Independent Study with Associate Professor Peter Jones. An international jury included OCAD U SFI graduate Zan Chandler (she was not permitted to review her Alma Mater submissions to avoid bias).

"A professional futurist studies possible, probable and preferable futures in order to help people understand, anticipate, prepare for and gain advantage from coming changes,” said Stein. “It is not the goal of a futurist to predict, but to assist others to understand their strategic options, in order to enable wiser decisions today."

Each student team was partnered with an industry ambassador or advisor to help ground the conversation in concerns, dilemmas and understandings that are critical to their industries today. Participation in this year’s competition builds on a new project in Foresight Studio called Time Machine, where students produce reports on possible future scenarios as well as create design-led, immersive simulations of selected stories for students, faculty, and community participants to explore.

APF Student Recognition Competition Achievements:

Graduate Individual:

Melissa Daly-Buajitti:
Towards a New Social Economy
(Second Prize)
Comparing the key functions driving social interaction within Twitter to exchanges of commodity and currency, Daly-Buajitti’s project proposes a framework by which to conceive of an emerging "social economy," and discusses the impacts such a format of socializing might have on our sense of self and interpersonal relationships.  

Graduate Team:

Zahra Ebrahim, Jonathan Hoss, Karen Maxwell and Shannah Segal:
Futures of Broadcast
(First Prize)
With the assistance of an industry ambassador from TVO, the team examined the potential evolution of Canadian public broadcasting over the next two decades.

Hilary Best, Jennifer Chan, Karen Oikonen and Lauren Snowball:
Futures of Foreign Aid (Second Prize)
With an ambassador from Engineers Without Borders, the team produced a detailed overview of possible futures for the foreign aid sector through the year 2040.

Alternative Format:

Melissa Daly-Buajitti, Mark Singh and Adam Starkman:
Futures of Affluence
(Second prize)
Core to this team’s project was “Nousopoly,” a new take on a well-known board game based on the dynamics of winner-takes-all capitalism, but redesigned to reflect a multiple-currency landscape in 2053. The team had ambassadorial input from Scotiabank.

“The Strategic Foresight & Innovation program has crafted a unique offering where design pedagogy and foresight practice meet. These awards demonstrate what a powerful combination that can be,” said Candy.

*Grad Studies Info Night @ 205 Richmond

Grad Studies Info Night @ 205 Richmond
Wednesday, November 27, 2013 - 11:00pm

Grad Info Nights: Nov 4th ,5th, 27th, 28th 6pm - 8pm

Programs: Art, Design & New Media Histories / Inclusive Design / Strategic Foresight and Innovation

November 27:
- Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Histories (MA)
- Inclusive Design (MDes)
Strategic Foresight and Innovation (MDes)

Are you willing to embrace a creative future? Then you're ready to consider Graduate Studies at OCAD University — the university of the imagination, in the heart of Canada’s most culturally vibrant city.
We give ideas a place and a space. Our ability to offer graduate students a unique experience is solidly rooted in our 137-year history of delivering uncompromising art and design education. Grounded in practice, theory, research and professionalism, with an eye on experimentation and change, we deliver advanced experiential learning. Our graduate students enjoy unrivalled opportunities to practice with expert faculty, in studios, labs and through exceptional internships.

At OCAD U, we attract curious and creative students who expect something more from their education and are willing to challenge themselves to achieve it. Are you ready to explore, enrich and expand your horizons?
Join us at our Information Nights to learn more about Graduate Studies at OCAD U!

WATCH (video):

Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Histories (MA):

Inclusive Design (MDes):

More OCAD University Graduate Studies Info Nights:

Contemporary Art, Design and New Media Histories (MA)
Tuesday, November 5, 6 to 8 p.m.
Wednesday, November 27,6 to 8 p.m.

Criticism & Curatorial Practice (MFA)
Monday, November 4, 6 to 8 p.m.
Thursday, November 28, 6 to 8 p.m.

Digital Futures (MDes, MFA, MA and Graduate Diploma)
Tuesday, November 5,6 to 8 p.m.
Thursday, November 28, 6 to 8 p.m.

Inclusive Design (MDes)
Monday, November 4, 6 to 8 p.m.
Wednesday, November 27, 6 to 8 p.m.

Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design (MDes, MFA, MA)
Tuesday, November 5, 6 to 8 p.m.
Thursday, November 28, 6 to 8 p.m.

Strategic Foresight and Innovation (MDes)
Monday, November 4, 6 to 8 p.m.
Wednesday, November 27, 6 to 8 p.m.

All Graduate Studies Information Nights are held at OCAD University, 205 Richmond Street West.

If you are unable to attend the information sessions in person, please email us with any questions about our graduate programs gradstudies@ocadu.ca

Twitter Ask Me Anything:
December 4, 2013 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. sessions
Follow @OCADUgrad

* The Application Deadline for all programs is Monday, January 13, 2014 *

Graduate Studies at OCAD University
205 Richmond Street West
Toronto, Ontario
http://www.ocadu.ca/programs/graduate_studies.htm

For more information, contact:
Office of Graduate Studies
416-977-6000 Ext. 423 or gradstudies@ocadu.ca

www.ocadu.ca/graduate-studies.htm

 

Free

Venue & Address: 
5th Floor 205 Richmond St. Toronto, Ontario

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