Guelph Lab Projects

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The Sandbox: Launching Community-Owned Social Entreprises in Guelph-Wellington

The Sandbox pairs interdisciplinary teams of students with community organizations looking to launch social enterprises in Guelph-Wellington. They work together for four months to grow the enterprise, supported by seed funding, training and mentorship.

Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
The SEED
City of Guelph

Active Citizen Project

The Active Citizen Project leverages the research and teaching resources of the University via the Guelph Lab, linking them with initiatives at the City that engage citizens in the governance of the city – from policy making to service design/delivery and budgeting.

Product(s): 
Environmental Scan
Evaluation
Infographic
Literature Review
Policy Brief
Report
Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph

Exploring Municipal Innovation for the 2017 Municipal Innovators Community (MiC) Conference

The MiC conference organizers and the Guelph Lab partnered with the Research Shop to prepare materials for the conference that would be used to enable attendees to see themselves as “innovators,” and encourage discussion among attendees surrounding their respective experiences with and perspectives on innovation. The community partners identified a need for conference attendees from diverse professional backgrounds to be able to identify different kinds of innovation in order to recognize their work as innovative. 

Author(s): 
Taylor-Ann Grills, Kathleen Slemon, Alex Sawatzky
Product(s): 
Report
Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Research Shop
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph
Collaborate.Create.Accelerate. MiC logo.

Sharing Economy Toolkit

How can municipalities balance innovation, policy goals and citizen protection when faced with the growing popularity of companies like Uber or Airbnb? How can we best understand and respond to this new model of a sharing economy? To help answer these questions, the GuelphLab helped develop a Sharing Economy Toolkit.

Product(s): 
Report
Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph

Big Data and Smart Cities

The GuelphLab hosted 25 City of Guelph staff for discussions with Kurtis McBride, CEO of Miovision, a smart city technology company, and Dr. Rozita Dara, School of Computer Science, University of Guelph, about the possibilities and challenges of “Smart Cities.”

Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph

City of Guelph Roundtables

The City of Guelph is experimenting with different methods for developing policies, programs, and services. The City asked the Guelph lab to support a series of “Roundtables”. During Summer 2015, staff from Corporate Services and the Office of the CAO held a series of events to ask City staff about a range of challenges faced by the Corporation – from employee engagement to managing physical infrastructure (“assets”) and the City budget process. Teams are worked to address three of the eleven topics identified. Remaining topics will be addressed by future “tables.”

Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph

Public Innovation

The Guelph Lab hosted a small group of City staff, University faculty and students to discuss “public innovation” with Jepser Christiansen. Jesper is Head of Research at MindLab, a Danish cross-governmental innovation unit that involves citizens and businesses in creating new solutions for society. Jesper discussed Mindlab’s work and the role of citizens in public sector innovation.

Product(s): 
Report
Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph
The Mind Lab

Public Sector Procurement

How can procurement be “open” and support innovation?

The City of Guelph’s information technology (IT) department asked the GuelphLab to support the design of alternative procurement processes that can unlock innovative technology solutions for the City and have the potential to create business development opportunities for companies working in “Civic Tech.”

Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph

Open Government

The City of Guelph’s 2014 Open Government Action Plan (attached below) was one of the first of its kind in Canada. The Guelph Lab hosted 30 City of Guelph staff and councillors to discuss Open Government – what it means, its history, and how it has (and hasn’t) been adopted across Canadian municipalities. 

Product(s): 
Report
Presentation
Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph

The People Table and Employee Engagement

The People Table had a problem to tackle – the City hadn’t performed well in the 2012 employee engagement survey. In 2014, some departments and service areas had made positive strides, but others had been less successful so the overall picture hadn’t actually changed all that much. “Must do better.” Agreed. So, where to start?

Product(s): 
Report
Program(s): 
Guelph Lab
Project Partner(s): 
City of Guelph