Projects
CitizenBridge.org is a not-for-profit civic engagement organization that created a Democracy 2.0 platform that allows Canadians and their Elected Representatives to have a conversation about the issues at the Federal, Provincial, and Municipal levels of government. It was built by eight passionate people (in their spare time, and with no budget) with the goal of modernizing how Canadians engage with their Government. CitizenBridge.org gives Canadians the opportunity to be active participants with their government instead of being passive observers of their government.
This project is to build version 2.0 of the CitizenBridge public-facing web site. The back end needs to be re-architected to take advantage of the latest ParliamentData.ca API. The front end needs to be more informative, responsive, and accessible, using standard CSS toolkits, such as Web Experience Toolkit or Twitter bootstrap.
Contacts: Richard Pietro and Matthew Potter
An electoral system is a method for allocating and counting votes in elections. In Canada, we use First Past the Post (FPTP) where the candidate with the largest number of votes in a district wins. Alternative electoral systems are Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) or Single Transferable Vote (STV). But these have not been widely used in Canada, so it’s difficult for candidates to plan for and allocate resources.
For the “Election Tycoon” project, we will be taking large datasets from Statistics Canada, Elections Canada, and other electoral and geographic data to build a planning tool. With this tool, users will be able to understand the effectiveness of a campaign under the various electoral systems. By effectiveness, we mean the likelihood of winning an election with a given resource allocation.
Contact: Jim Rootham
Problem: Globally, approximately 80% of maternal deaths are due to pregnancy-related complications with over 529,000 women dying each year. 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries. Initially we will focus on Nepal that has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world at 740 per 100,000 births or almost 4,500 maternal deaths annually.
Solution: By building an ultrasound train-the-trainer program whereby Nepalese health care workers at an NGO will be trained on how to use ultrasound and these trained staff will then train other staff. The local Nepalese staff will triage maternal conditions on medical treks to remote resource-poor areas of Nepal using portable ultrasound (which exists) and bidirectional communication between the remote areas and the hospital/medical centre.
Our Challenge: Allowing ultrasound images to be transmitted to medical centres and managing image data so that attending radiologists can diagnose/predict maternal complications. This will improve the care of mothers and potentially save lives as it allows determining whether the mother can, for example, deliver safely in the remote area or must be transported to hospital.
What we need: Software (server) to receive images from mobile apps and manage various users and workflows in a secure environment. Users are (1) remote health care workers who generate the images and require (and receive) diagnostic feedback for their patients, and (2) radiologists who assess the ultrasound images remotely (potentially worldwide) on a volunteer basis. Depending on the diagnosis there are various workflows. These can involve simple feedback (patient is okay) or more complex instructions and information (e.g. annotated images to demonstrate health risk to patient).
Contacts: Leanne Tran, MD, JD and Klaus Fiebig, PhD
ACORN Canada is a membership based community organization that focuses on social justice and leadership development in low and moderate income communities across Canada. Our main project areas include: Healthy Homes, Remittance Justice, Digital Access To Opportunities, Raising the Minimum Wage and more.
This project looks to develop an interactive mapping platform that would display sub-standard housing complaints captured by a number of outreach techniques (door to door, flyers, on line eblasts, and more) that would be sent into the interactive map through text messaging and though a web browser. The information would include minimum criteria to be determined, such as: mold and pest infestation, unit disrepair, heat problems, and security issues. The data will be displayed on a Google Map. The purpose of the interactive map would be to expose the huge amount of housing problems that exist in large Canadian Cities. Toronto will serve as a pilot site with the aim of broadening the project to Ottawa and eventually nation-wide.
Contact: Judy Duncan
TABS on Toronto is a web site that allows users to search city council meeting minutes and agendas, and to receive email notifications of new items. The site was created: to facilitate access to information regarding meetings at city hall; to increase public participation in municipal meetings; and to save people and organizations time.
TABS is written in Python on a Django platform, using Beautiful Soup as a scraping tool. Users sign up for search terms on the tabsontoronto.ca website. Then, on a daily schedule, the TABS system searches the City’s web site to return results, and sends notifications depending on updates to the information it finds. This current project will consist of writing an Android app for TABS. The app will allow users to perform searches, manage their subscriptions, and receive notifications
Contact: Bill Cowen and Jayme Turner
INVSTG8.NET ["Investigate Net"] is an open source microcollaboration tool designed to help journalists overcome obstacles to reporting that are created by lack of access to information and communication technology. It does this by linking accessible technologies like mobile text messaging, e-mail, and the open Web to help them connect and microcollaborate. Microcollaboration consists of brief information transactions between peers who can fill gaps in access or knowledge. INVSTG8.NET's long-term goal is to encourage and amplify these microcollaborations, and to foster larger, deeper collaborations in the future.
This project would involve building on the existing prototype, written in Ruby on Rails. You can see the current code on GitHub. The next stage of the project will involve implementing a profile management system on both the administration and user end, including identity integration from users' existing accounts on other services.
Contact: Saleem Khan
The Cultural Hotspot celebrates community, culture and creativity by highlighting inner suburban communities across Toronto. From May – October 2014, the inaugural Cultural Hotspot program will feature a region of Scarborough bordered by Lawrence Avenue, Highland Creek Village, Victoria Park Avenue and the lake. The 'hot spot' boasts a diverse cultural scene, engaged community, growing economy and unique local history. The program will bring cultural activities, art interventions, and legacy projects to the area.
With an emphasis on youth mentorship and employment, business engagement, community building and artistic excellence, the project will draw new attention to the area. Produced by Toronto Cultural Services, in collaboration with local arts, cultural and heritage organizations, community partners, local businesses and other City divisions, this project builds on existing community strengths while developing resources in neighbourhoods outside the downtown core.
We need an interactive site that includes a backend database that will allow us to collect information from artists, business and community members about the events and initiatives that are happening in the Hotspot area. We'd like an interactive map that highlights the Hotspot area. We're hoping to provide an interactive platform so that people can share their feedback about the community, and tell us about their favourite spots in the Hotspot area. We're planning for a legacy for this project, which will likely be in the form of open data, and need a mechanism to collect this information. In short, we need you, and your ideas and skills.
Note that only 1 team will be assigned to this project.
Contact: Andrea Raymond-Wong
The East Scarborough Storefront is a not-for-profit organization, which is a collaboration of over 35 partners who serve approximately 200 people per day. Scheduling this many partners, all of whom have their own preferences for office space, meeting space, or program space, seeing "clients" for various lengths of time and only coming on certain days of the week has become quite a chore.
Rather than spending time fulfilling our mandate, staff are wasting time trying to book partners and "clients" using an outdated and crash-prone system. We’re looking for a web-based application that can have multiple users, (with varying degrees of authority) that can book rooms, partners and people. Ideally, I'm looking for a way to streamline the process and make it easier to know who's in on which day, what room they're in, and who they're seeing.
Contact: Jaime Elliott-Ngugi
North York Seniors Centre (NYSC) provides programs and services to promote the physical, emotional and social well-being of adults 55+ living in our diverse community. We are an accredited charitable organization serving the community for 40 years. Our broad spectrum of programs and services are designed to engage and support seniors to live safely and independently in their homes. NYSC employs 90 full-time and part-time professionals and is fortunate to have over 300 volunteers that support us to serve almost 3000 seniors across North York and beyond.
Currently, the fastest growing age group in Canada is between 60-64 years of age - right behind the leading edge Baby Boomers who started turning 65 in 2011. These statistics are reflected at the ALC where membership has increased by 58% in the 55-64 year old age group. It is the largest growing age group attending programs at the centre. Baby Boomers are computer literate and value convenience and efficiency. Our programs and services are constantly evolving to suit the needs and preference of this unique demographic. Offering on-line membership and program registration to our membership represents a major advancement to meeting the needs of this demographic.
We envision a system that will allow members to take out a new membership and renew their annual membership on-line using a computer or tablet. The system will help them process the paperwork, set personal goals and make easy credit card payment through PayPal. We would like them to have the ability to register for classes, activities or events on line complete with payment (PayPal). Registering on-line will help us provide a service that is fast, easy to use and convenient for individuals to use.
Contacts: Linda Rataj and Stacy Chung