Policy Forum

Join CCWESTT for the 2024 Policy Forum

Join an exciting opportunity to learn how to become an advocate for systems change that advances gender equity in SETT.

Darcy Riddell

We are excited to welcome Darcy Riddell!

a social change expert with 25 years of experience, as our facilitator for the day!

Darcy Riddell has been working for social change for 25 years in a variety of roles – in forest campaigns and catalyzing innovative land conservation in the Great Bear Rainforest, leading philanthropic evaluation and transformative learning at McConnell Foundation, designing and facilitating multi-sector change initiatives, and founding and funding collaborative networks that centre sustainability, justice and systems change.  She currently works as a consultant with RAD (Restore, Assert, Defend) Network advancing Indigenous-led conservation finance and nature-based solutions, and on other strategic engagements.

 

Darcy completed a transdisciplinary Ph.D. in Environment and Resources Studies at University of Waterloo, focused on transformative leadership and social impact in complex multi-scaled contexts, and has published on systems change in sustainability, social innovation, and scaling. She chairs the board of Social Innovation Canada, and is a board director at Hollyhock educational centre on Cortes Island. Darcy is a fifth generation British Columbian, living with her family in the territories of the əsəlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), & Sḵwx̱wú7meshsi (Squamish), where she is a student of nature and the wisdom traditions of longstanding cultures.

We are thrilled to welcome experts from across and beyond the SETT sector

to share learnings and reflections from their real-world experiences with systems change.

Michelle Charlotte Liu
Michelle Liu (they/them) is an Ottawa-based, Queer, racialized, neurodivergent, and non-binary engineer (P.Eng), soon-to-be lawyer, speaker, consultant, and researcher. Michelle earned their Honours BASc and MASc in civil engineering from the University of Waterloo and worked in design and construction management for various consulting engineering firms. You can find their full Bio here.
Representing WISE Planet, an organization that strives to create a diverse, inclusive, equitable and just society by training women and other underrepresented groups in STEM to be change leaders equipped to address the major, shared challenges our societies face. Participants learn to identify and disassemble barriers to success in their workplaces and in larger societal settings with a focus on innovative and sustainable solutions that will benefit everyone.
Jennifer van Zelm
Panelist
Seneca logo
To help create responsible, innovative, and socially conscious computer scientists, Seneca Polytechnic has developed a computer science degree that weaves equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) throughout its curriculum. The program initiator, and development team leader will explain how students build the knowledge and skills necessary to design with inclusion in mind to serve diverse communities, meet workforce demands for EDI skills, and uphold ethical responsibilities in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Through learning outcomes at the program and course level, students are consistently assessed for their ability to engage with EDI principles to recognize and mitigate biases in technology and address the needs of diverse societies. This presentation will explore challenges, processes and aha moments that helped shape Seneca’s Bachelor of Computer Science degree.

More panelists to come!

How is this year’s Policy Forum different from past ones?

“It takes a system to change a system.”

Over the past two years, CCWESTT has recognized the critical need to shift the dialogue away from changing women and other underrepresented folks to changing the system. As such, this year’s Policy Forum is based on learning from CCWESTT’s 2023 Gap Analysis Report.The Executive Summary can be found here.

 

Looking for a primer on social innovation? View the Pre-Conference Panel Discussion, which took place on April 17, featuring Evidence for Democracy, the National Association of Women and the Law, and Here For Her. View it here.

Key Terms

Systems Change: Modifying components or combinations of components within a system to address and remove fundamental societal, environmental, and cultural elements that prevent change.

 

Scaling: To grow, achieve sustainable impact, become law, become normalized. 

 

Social Innovation: A complex process of introducing new products, processes or programs that profoundly change the basic routines, resource and authority flows, or beliefs of the social system in which the innovation occurs. Such successful social innovations have durability and broad impact (Westley & Antadze, 2010, p. 2). Social Innovation can be both destructive and catalytic, challenging the social system and social institutions where people learn, work, and reside. True social innovations involve institutional and social systems change and can contribute to overall social resilience.

Scaling Out, Scaling Up and Scaling Deep:

scale up, down

Past Policy Forum Documents

CCWESTT’s first Policy Forum was held at the 2012 CCWESTT Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia:  2012 Policy Forum Document.