Tomorrow evening, six people will get up to give one three-minute speech each about making Toronto better.
It’s part of the Six Degrees speaking series put on by the Centre for Social Innovation. It happens every month, growing out of what was once just a networking event for social innovators and other interested folks.
“We recently started introducing themes to our popular monthly networking event, Six Degrees of Social Innovation,” says Barnabe Geis, CSI’s communications architect.
“We felt it would be interesting to focus on a topic to deepen our understanding and conversations around the different trends and practices shaping this social innovation movement for people and planet. September's focus was on Community Finance. This month, we're looking at The City - how cities can be improved; everything from community building to civic engagement to urban design. Next month, we'll be exploring Food; its production, distribution and consumption. We're still doing facilitated networking and offering food and drinks. We're just getting the conversation started by inviting CSI members to share their ideas and knowledge with attendees.”
The speakers’ specific takes on the question are not being announced in advance - and I’m guessing at least a couple of them are going to wing it — but given the line-up, which includes Dave Meslin (“community choreographer"), Matthew Blackett (co-founder of Spacing magazine), Ryan Dyment (executive director of the Institute for a Resource-Based Economy) and Sylvia Kim (CSI’s Regent Park Manager) — they’ll be worth listening to. The city is once again at a crossroads, possibly emerging from a rather ridiculous interlude and still in the middle of one of the biggest development booms on the planet.
“We wanted to focus on the city this month because it seemed like a very appropriate time to do so with the elections happening,” Geis says. “I expect the elections will come up in conversations between guests but I think the speakers will be presenting solutions to the challenges we face, and I believe these solutions are bigger than just one election or any specific candidate. For example, how do we make the voting system more fair and inclusive? How do we improve transportation? How do we make public art more participatory? How do we reduce inequality? These kinds of questions may be election topics but the conversation needs to happen at the community level and not be limited in scope to one election day.”
The talks and networking will be going on at the CSI’s Annex Lounge at 720 Bathurst Street, from 6-8pm.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Barnabe Geis
Photo by Chris De Paul.