The Student Food Insecurity Campus Readiness Assessment supports emerging efforts to galvanize Canada campus communities to take action in addressing student food insecurity (SFI). The Readiness Assessment analyzes existing responses to student food insecurity on individual campuses, and provides insights into how the sector as a whole is responding to SFI.
There is growing evidence that significant numbers of university students in Canada experience food insecurity, potentially undermining the health, well-being and educational success of students. The University of Guelph has joined a handful of other Canadian universities in responding to this issue. CESI, Meal Exchange, Universities Fighting World Hunger and graduate students working with Dr.
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.
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.”
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.
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?
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.”
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.”
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.
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.