Schedule: 26 March 2011

Workshops: Think, Act, Evaluate

Engineers Without Borders
What makes an organization great? What does it mean to be part of a movement and create change? Find out what has made EWB-Canada one of the recognized and leading human development organizations in Africa, and the many innovative programs it runs here in Canada. Learn the story of EWB, why you're important to the organization, and how you can become a part of it. This session will also feature a special presentation on how to become an overseas African Programs Staff member with EWB.

Global citizenship and engineering
Are global citizenship initiatives effectively equipping Canadian engineers with the tools to drive societal change on a global level? What does society expect of these global engineers? This session will aim to define global citizenship and provide insight into global engineering initiatives in Canadian universities. Participants will be given the opportunity to learn, reflect and question global engineering initiatives with thought-provoking speakers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto.

Poverty
While we all would like to see Canada be a part of "making poverty history", before we act we need to consider what we are up against. What is poverty? How would you define it? How do other Canadians define it? How do other global citizens define it? And whose definition matters when making key development decisions? In this workshop, in challenging and intense discussions, we will explore our own definitions of poverty, and test these against cases from rural Africa.

Engaging government
This session aims to assess the Canadian government's involvement in sustainability and international development abroad. Right now there aren't many metrics available to conduct this assessment, so the goal of this session is to develop a metric, along the lines of a grading system or MP report card. Participants will work together with speakers to help develop the grading system, which may then be turned into a live document accessible through the EWB website.

Fair trade
This workshop will provide an introduction to what Fair Trade is, where the market is at now and what the future of the system will look like. Returned volunteers who have had first-hand experience visiting and working with producers will share the realities and stories about what impact fair trade is having on the ground. Business owners from Vancouver will share the realities of the current Fair Trade market in Vancouver, discovering what consumers want, and how the whole system comes down to making you (the consumer) happy. Delegates will be challenged to think about whether Fair trade can keep scaling up, what are the potential economic possibilities of the system, and can it ever replace free trade?

Fitting change into everyday life
Besides having the good will to help and support the world in any way you can, what else do you need to catalyze change? This workshop will give attendees ideas and tools to make and encourage good decisions in their everyday lives that will be the driving force behind changing the world into a better place. Participants will discuss reasons why it’s difficult for their work/study place to make positive changes towards global prosperity, and how to address these issues. Our amazing speaker Jeff Gibbs will talk about what individual everyday changes can do when collaborated, and share his personal experiences on how to catalyze beneficial change.

Engineering best practices
The application of engineering best practices, including respect for local communities, attention to environmental concerns, and efficiency of designs, is widespread in Canada, but is this the case in developing countries? This session will aim to answer this question through group discussion of specific case studies relating to engineering projects abroad. Participants will come away with a better idea of some of the challenges and benefits of applying engineering best practices in developing countries, and how this compares to Canada.

Media
This session aims to investigate the ways that different forms of media can be used to strengthen Canadians’ relationship to Africa and reverse negative trends in the way the media has portrayed Africa. By looking critically at the way the media has failed the goal of African development, we can create alternative innovative ways to leverage the media. Don Wright of Amnesty International will join us to provide insight into the ways the media has, and has not, connected Africa to Canadians and what opportunities the future holds for the media to be a more effective tool in international development.

Morals in development
This workshop will dive into the morals and ethics of international development, from military intervention and international law, to investment, human rights, and financial aid in general. We will explore the distinction between imposing and improving a foreign nation and who has a right to do so by discovering where you stand as an individual on this line. Should there even be a line or clear distinction between imposing and improving? Join this workshop to discover a little bit more about how to approach development through debate, different voices and the people around you.

Determining success in development
Is development succeeding? How do we know when there are no consistent metrics to measure our success? This panel will take the form of an interactive discussion with multiple panellists’ personal experience with measuring the success of development initiatives. In this session, we will challenge our assumptions around success, learn about the evolution of thinking around development metrics, and focus on effective questions to ensure future metrics will quantify real success in development.

Women in development
How do we empower women as leaders in politics, business, academics and the community? This session revisits the hurdles that women have overcome in developed nations and examines some of the issues surrounding women's roles in developing countries. Looking forward, this session stimulates discussion of unique solutions to help women move into more prominent positions in the future.

Outlets for change
What would you do with one million dollars and the challenge to alleviate extreme poverty? This energizing and hands-on workshop will challenge your assumptions and spark discussion on multi-stakeholder and multi-institutional approaches to international development. You will also hear from leading organizations that have discovered the potential of re-thinking collaboration in development. This session will critically asses the roles governments, the private sector, NGOs and educational institutions play in international development and ask the question: how do perceptions about the roles and effectiveness of each of these sectors and institutions affect our ability to integrate the resources and capabilities of these institutions to tackle challenging global problems?

Opportunity Marketplace

Everyday we make decisions about the clothing we are going to wear to keep our bodies protected from the elements. We choose what food to put into our bodies to provide us with the energy to go out and complete our daily tasks. We choose how we spend our time when we are not working – with friends, family, playing sports, and volunteering. Our lives are full of choices – choices as a result of living in Canada. We believe that injustice must be confronted and that the next generation of rural Africans should have the same opportunity and privilege of choice.

Opening Keynote: Melanie Mullen, UN Innovation & Development Coordinator

Melanie Mullen has been active since the age of 10, today recognizing that both great local efforts and global action are necessary. Her contribution as a local environmental engineer is through a concept she developed called (re)covering. Mullen runs an eco-imagineering consulting company called (re)cover inc. all the while supporting local media currently writing for a Niagara Falls based media company. On the international front she also hold the position of Innovation and Development Co-ordinator for the United Nations Association in Canada.

She graduated with a degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Guelph and the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation Award.

Internationally, she lectured all over the world; Melanie Mullen Japan Tour 2009, in Venezuela at the Federation of the Greens of the Americas, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP 13 Indonesia, COP 15 Copenhagen , COP 16 Mexico, Eco Summit in Guelph, Niagara Health Department, the Inconvenient Truth about the University of Guelph, and the Ontario Environmental Network Conference.

Provincially, in 2008 Mullen was nominated and voted in as Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Ontario and a candidate in the Provincial elections.

Locally in her hometown of Niagara Falls Mullen single handedly revitalized the historic downtown (after 30 years of efforts). Success came from effectively mobilizing the city, landowner and regional support in establishing a strong community base. Awarded with the Good Canadian Citizen award by the City of Niagara Falls and the Youth Achievement Award by the Sierra Club of Canada with regards to city planning, community building and awareness.

As a student, Mullen was vice president and an executive member of Engineers Without Borders for four years, member of the Sierra Youth Coalition of Canada, Sustainable Campuses and Guelph Students for Environmental Change (GSEC). She had co-founded, hosted and directed an Environment Radio show for 5 years.

In 2007, Ray ran the three coastal trails of Canada, back to back and non-stop. The Akshayuk Pass on Baffin Island, East Coast Trail Newfoundland and West Coast Trail in British Columbia.

Motivated by the Sahara run- Ray conceptualized the CanadaONExONE Run in May 2008. Along with a team of runners, Ray ran an average 80 kms per day in each of Canada’s 13 Provinces and Territories in so many days. Schools were visited, students participated, and communities became engaged in many of the child based issues ONExONE is addressing. In Saskatoon alone, several thousand students and 27 schools were involved in school rallies and a city wide relay with Ray and the team.

Two years after touching the Red Sea, Ray, and two other Canadians, broke the world speed record for an unsupported expedition by a team to the South Pole, In the process, Ray trekked this traditional route from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole solely on foot and snowshoes- without the use of skis. Students and classrooms from all over North America joined the team as they trekked to the South Pole on a daily basis- communicating and actively taking part in an educational resource– becoming “team mates” of the expedition. This expedition was completed as part of Ray’s organization, impossible2Possible.

In 2008, Ray founded impossible2Possible (i2P), an organization that aims to inspire and educate youth through adventure learning, and inclusion and participation in expeditions.

Ray is a proud member of the board of Directors of the Ryan’s Well Foundation, is the official Athletic Ambassador and a board member of the ONExONE organization, and is a representative of SpreadTheNet. Ray was the recipient of the ONExONE Difference Award in 2007, and the Torchbearers Award in 2010.

Throughout 2009 and 2010, expeditions have included: an unsupported 13 day run the length of frozen Lake Baikal, 3 Youth based expeditions to Baffin Island, Tunisia and the Amazon. All of these expeditions supported various initiatives through an Experiential Learning program in which thousands of students participated as active team members during the expeditions, from classrooms all over the world.

In addition to his running adventures, Ray speaks around the world at events such as TED, IOC World Conference, Idea City, The Economist World in 2010 and 2011, World Affairs Council and countless events.

Hans Rosling has been an adviser to WHO and UNICEF, co-founded Médecins sans Frontières in Sweden, and started new courses and published a textbook on Global Health. He is a member of the International Group of the Swedish Academy of Science and of the Global Agenda Network of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Rosling co-founded GapmSinder Foundation with son and daughter-in-law to promote a fact-based worldview by converting statistics into interactive and enjoyable animations.

Shauna Sylvester is a Fellow at the Simon Fraser University Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue and the Director of Canada's World - a national citizens' dialogue on Canadian international policy. In May 2010, Shauna will launch a new initiative called Carbon Talks which will focus on the role of business in increasing Canada's global competitiveness by shifting to a low carbon economy. Shauna has written and edited several publications related to foreign policy, social and environmental issues and has provided policy advice to governments and foundations on subjects as varied as peacebuilding, human rights, media, forestry and AIDS.