Civic Tech Toronto

👉️️ Tue Oct 27 → 7pm • in-person & online The day after Toronto votes, join @neeeda.bsky.social of The Green Line, @graphicmatt.com of City Hall Watcher and moderator @lanrickbennett.bsky.social to unpack the results and surprises! ✚ mingling & informal breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Oct 20 → 7pm • in-person & online What makes a transit-oriented complete community? Greg Spencer and Luca Carnegie of The Canadian Urban Institute demo Measuring Main Streets, a tool designed to provide the answer. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Oct 13 → 7pm • in-person & online What can maps tell us about how Toronto votes? Prof. Zack Taylor ( @bigcitypolitics.bsky.social ) on the election maps he built with colleagues, how they've been used, and what else they could reveal! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Oct 6 → 7pm • in-person & online Most Canadian cities bury council records in one-off formats and PDFs, sometimes scanned. Toronto's are a breath of fresh air. Mike Nikles on making every format searchable with @civic-lens.ca! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Sept 29 → 7pm • in-person & online Face scanning to guess your age is becoming the price of protecting kids online. Sara Grimes asks whether it works and what it means for children's privacy and rights! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Sept 22 → 7pm • in-person & online Dark patterns used to be a buried opt-out or a sneaky button. Now they're in your chats with AI. Dominique Kelly on why they're harder to resist, especially for young users! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Sept 15 → 7pm • in-person & online What would Bill C-22 mean for your privacy and human rights? Lawyer Cynthia Khoo (@cyn-k.bsky.social) presents the Citizen Lab and CCLA's joint analysis of the surveillance it would expand. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Sept 8 → 7pm • in-person & online What can apps learn about your health from your voice, your cough, and other sounds? Stephen J. Neville (@silentrecord.bsky.social) tracks a decade of growing privacy and discrimination risks! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Sept 1 → 7pm • in-person & online What does the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario do? @ipcontario.bsky.social's Christopher Parsons and Sharly Chan explain how they protect your rights in a changing tech landscape! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Aug 25 → 7pm • in-person & online Anna H, Julian Egelstaff and Adam Khafagy of ClimateFast built the People's Data Centre Map, so residents can see existing and proposed AI data centres near them! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Aug 18 → 7pm • in-person & online A cyberattack downed every Toronto Public Library system, yet all 100 branches stayed open. TPL CIO Steve Till-Rogers on leading the response, the rebuild, and the lessons! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Aug 11 → 7pm • in-person & online Producer @danielbekerman.bsky.social (The VVitch, The Apprentice) shares why he's building a worker-owned co-op streaming platform, changing the medium before the message gets bleaker! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue Aug 4 → 7pm • in-person & online What is a queer archive, and how does it survive online? Digital Archivist Natasha Fisher gives an accessible intro to how The ArQuives future-proofs Canada's 2SLGBTQIA+ history! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue July 28 → 7pm • in-person & online How can tech help your neighbourhood flourish? Relational Tech Project's Deborah Tien (@detien.bsky.social) is building infrastructure to spread ideas and tools place to place. Let's experiment! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue July 21 → 7pm • in-person & online Want better TTC service? Luke Li's TransitBunny RT uses live vehicle data to catch delays and bottlenecks, so you can report exactly where service is failing, backed by data! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic... #GTFS #GTFSRT

👉️️ Tue July 14 → 7pm • in-person & online Tired of the pothole no one fixes? Ahmed Nadar built SolveTO for Toronto, turning one photo into a report the city can act on. Learn what a tool like this could mean for other Canadian cities. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue July 7 → 7pm • in-person & online Learn more about the Church Street Pedestrianization Pilot happening this summer! With @chanface.bsky.social and @francescapoli.bsky.social. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue June 23 → 7pm • in-person & online One year in, the TWC Canada Organizing Committee facilitates a discussion addressing the worries tech workers face: layoffs, top-down AI mandates, and AI usage tracking. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue June 16 → 7pm • in-person & online How child-friendly is your neighbourhood? Dr. Emily Gemmell (@egemmell.bsky.social) shares an urban playability index scoring how well Canada's 35 largest cities support kids' outdoor play and health! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue June 9 → 7pm • in-person & online Lightning updates from four Civic Tech projects: Landlord & Tenant Board data explorer, @bikespaceto.bsky.social, @techfordemocracy.bsky.social, and @civicdashboard.bsky.social. See what's new! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue June 2 → 7pm • in-person & online Using AI in your civic tech work but unsure how to build responsibly? Learn how Smol Gardens, a civic tech accountability framework, can help through a hands-on vibecoding workshop! ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉️️ Tue May 26 → 7pm • in-person & online Maple Scan has helped thousands of Canadians support Canadian products. Sasha Ivanov will tell the story of how his app brought volunteers together to make product information more transparent. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/from-...

👉 Tue May 19 → 7pm • in-person & online The housing system isn't broken from lack of listings — it's missing an intelligence layer. Bisola Mariam on what that means and how to fix it. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue May 12 → 7pm • in-person & online A frustrating search for places to play badminton led Ann Chen to build a drop-in programs finder with open data. She’ll share what she learned creating a tool to save people time when life gets busy. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue May 5 → 7pm • in-person & online Combining AI with municipal data opens new ways to understand how a city really works. Raviteja Katipally on what Toronto's 311 service requests tell us about neighbourhood patterns & city services. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Apr 28 → 7pm • in-person & online Terra Gillespie (@terraloire.bsky.social) on how data gets dressed up to deceive — and how to spot the difference between honest numbers and misleading ones. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Apr 21 → 7pm • in-person & online Poe Han Thar Kyaw on how governments actually govern AI — comparing values, mechanisms & tradeoffs across the world to find what works, and where Canada fits in. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Sunday Apr 19 → 12pm • in-person Civic Space Sunday April edition! Free coworking at @1rg.space for anyone interested in tech for civic good — whether you have a project, want to join one, or are just curious. luma.com/civic-space-...

👉 Tue Apr 14 → 7pm • in-person & online Eugene Chen on building a volunteer-made doorknocking app for a successful mayoral race — using open data to cover 500K+ Edmonton addresses, now adapted for Toronto. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Apr 7 → 7pm • in-person & online @thelocal.to's @wencyleung.bsky.social on how local journalism digs into the data — Ontario sold Health811 as a great service, but wait times of up to 11 hours tell a different story. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Mar 31 → 7pm • in-person & online @ilyakreynin.bsky.social makes the case: civic tech projects aren't startups — they're more like community organizations. What can they learn from organizing and its principles? He'll show you. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 This Sunday Mar 22 → 12pm • in-person Civic Space Sundays is back! Free coworking at @1rg.space for anyone interested in tech for civic good — whether you have a project, want to join one, or are just curious. luma.com/civic-space-...

👉 Tue Mar 24 → 7pm • in-person & online Ghazaleh Mohseni presents a data-driven framework to improve bus network performance using real-time transit data, ML & optimization. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Mar 17 → 7pm • in-person & online Andrew Bacchus explores civic tech for nature — wildlife, eDNA & invisible carbon, with a solar-punk take on sustainability. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Mar 10 → 7pm • in-person & online Oben Hum is ferreting out real-time bus locations with ease — building Busferret, a data-efficient TTC tracker using Toronto's Open Data. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Mar 3 → 7pm • in-person & online ClimateFast tracked every climate vote at City Council since 2018. Anna H shares the findings and what they mean for your ward. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tue Feb 24 → 7pm • in-person & online Testing AI tools led to building recfinderto.ca. Daniel Liadsky shares the unexpected journey and real lessons from rapid prototyping. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 Tues Feb 17 → 7pm (in person & online) Deneille Macas shows how Toronto Home Zone is breaking down the knowledge gaps that leave tenants vulnerable. Plus: discussions & project breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 This Tues Feb 10 → 7pm (in person & online) City budgets shouldn't be impossible to understand. @henrikbechmann.bsky.social shows how normalizing the format of Toronto's operating budget makes it accessible to everyone. Plus: discussions and project breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

👉 This Tues Feb 3 → 7pm (in person & online) Public lobbying data exists, but it's cumbersome to access. Tom Slee presents his work to make government #lobbying registries more transparent and usable. Plus: discussions and project breakouts! https://guild.host/events/civic-meetup-528-lobby-3u6ps2

One last round at the Prenup before we say goodbye 🍻 Join us February 3rd after the Civic Tech meetup to celebrate the memories and connections made at our beloved local haunt.

👉 This Tues Jan 27 → 7pm (in person & online) What if cultural data wasn't fragmented? Robin Sokoloski explores the DNA Project's vision for a shared, open data ecosystem for the arts sector. Plus: discussions and project breakouts! https://guild.host/events/civic-hacknight-527-enx7le

👉 This Tues Jan 20 → 7pm (in person & online) What can free public datasets reveal about culture sector? Kelly Hill shares 30 years of insights mining open data to understand Canada's arts community. Plus: discussions and project breakouts! https://guild.host/events/civic-hacknight-526-s1khlx

👉 This Tues Jan 13 → 7pm (in person & online) How do you make live performances discoverable online? Meet Artsdata, the knowledge graph connecting ephemeral arts info across thousands of platforms. Plus: discussions and project breakouts! https://guild.host/events/civic-hacknight-525-7t7pti

👉 This Tues Jan 6 → 7pm (in person & online) Toronto Arts' new strategic plan puts geospatial data at the center. Learn how they're using maps to make the case for artists, workers & audiences. Plus: discussions and project breakouts! https://guild.host/events/civic-hacknight-524-u2otyl

👉 This Tues Dec 16 → 7pm (in person & online) Jordan Armstrong gives a behind-the-scenes tour of CTTO's new public archive—peek at the tech, discover data insights, and explore a decade of innovation! Plus: discussions and project breakouts! https://guild.host/events/civic-hacknight-523-ejr2t4

👉 This Tues Dec 9 → 7pm (in person & online) A civicdashboard.ca project update. The dashboard helps you follow, understand, and influence city decisions. Discover how you can shape its future. Plus: discussions and project breakouts! https://guild.host/events/civic-hacknight-522-l1f0it

This Tuesday: How an AI agent fixed Canada's open data problem in 24 hours Join Olivia Cimó to explore Web Search MCP Servers and learn how you can build one to supercharge your research guild.host/events/civic... Plus: discussions and project breakouts! 👉 7pm Dec 2 in person and online

This Tuesday: AI & Human Behaviour Elisabeth Costa shares key insights from BIT's new paper on how behavioural science can augment AI and align its design with human psychology. guild.host/events/civic... Plus: discussions and project breakouts! 👉 7pm Nov 25 in person and online

Worker-Owned Intersectional Tech Platforms (WOIP) Rafael Grohmann explores how WOIP co-ops in Brazil and Argentina can inspire Toronto's worker-led digital future. guild.host/events/civic... Plus: discussions and project breakouts! 👉 7pm Nov 18 in person and online