The Vancouver Island community of Saanich has a lot of heart – literally. Since summer 2020, Saanich residents have decorated more than 900 wooden and clay hearts that now adorn structures all over community parks and spaces. Brenda Weatherston is a community arts specialist with the municipality, and one of the people behind the HeArts…
La collectivité de Saanich, sur l’île de Vancouver, a beaucoup de cœur — littéralement. Depuis l’été 2020, ses résidents ont décoré plus de 900 cœurs en bois et en argile, lesquels ornent maintenant des structures dans les parcs et les espaces communautaires. Brenda Weatherston est une spécialiste des arts communautaires auprès de la municipalité, et l’une des…
This is the first in a series of profiles about past winners – “laureates” – of the Arctic Inspiration Prize. “By the North, for the North,” the prize celebrates and provides seed funding every year to groups working to develop new and creative projects that solve challenges in the North. Northerners helping Northerners is a…
A polar vortex settles over the Northwest Territories (NWT), and by one o’clock in the afternoon, the mercury dips to minus 50 degrees Celsius. Glen Abernethy, former MLA for the Great Slave riding and current NWT region manager for the Arctic Inspiration Prize (AIP), worries about his connection. “I’m at a cabin 35 kilometres outside…
For the North and by the North. Six little words that mean so much. Since 2012, when the Arctic Inspiration Prize (AIP) was established, these six words have been its guiding principle. Says Kristina Kane, chief of the Ta’an Kwach’an Council in Whitehorse, the prize is about “honouring champions who use their creativity, innovation, and…
This is the final installment in our series about social innovation. The series is published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and McConnell Foundation. As we were striving to understand how the United Way-Centraide (UWC) movement has leveraged social innovation methods and tools to achieve more impact, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus quickly became the most significant global…
Alors que nous travaillions à comprendre comment le mouvement Centraide-United Way Canada (CUWC) avait amplifié son impact grâce à des méthodes et à des outils d’innovation sociale, la flambée du nouveau coronavirus a rapidement provoqué la plus importante pandémie depuis plus d’un siècle. Au Canada, les contrecoups sanitaires et financiers de la crise ont souligné…
This is the second of two articles about artificial intelligence. “An AI utopia is a place where people have income guaranteed because their machines are working for them. Instead, they focus on activities that they want to do, that are personally meaningful like art or, where human creativity still shines, in science.” – Oren…
This is the first of two articles about artificial intelligence. Although we recognize it is a loaded question, we asked Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, “how can we solve homelessness?” The boilerplate answer, not surprisingly: “Sorry, I don’t know that one.” It is easy to conclude that machine intelligence is a long way from helping…
This is the latest installment in our series about social innovation. The series is published as a collaboration between The Philanthropist and McConnell Foundation. Like any ecosystem worthy of the name, social innovation in Quebec is rich and diverse. This article offers a glimpse into six organizations that have developed new models that bring hope…