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3 Hours

Design Thinking and Innovation Hubs

Explore concepts and practical applications of design thinking, integrative thinking, lateral thinking and other creative ways of re-imagining policy problems.

8 May 2025

3 hours, 01:00 PM EDT - 04:00 PM EDT

Online

  • $399.00 incl.
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Description

Innovative approaches to public policy and programs demand different ways of thinking. In this half-day webinar, you will learn to re-imagine policy problems creatively.  Federal government leaders are seeking new ideas for policy solutions. Design Thinking and Innovation Hubs will explore practical techniques that you can use to meet your leaders’ needs like “design thinking”, “integrative thinking”, and “lateral thinking”.

  • Learn how to run your own Design Lab, and practice the steps of Empathize, Define and Ideate using a case study approach.
  • Design Thinking and Innovation Hubs is a webinar that you should attend if you are a policy analyst at any level, in program delivery and want to improve results and outcomes, or are a public servant who wants to expand your skills in innovatively thinking and policy-making.

Learning Objectives:

  • You will leave with an understanding of the concepts and practical applications of “design thinking”, “integrative thinking”, “lateral thinking” and other creative ways of re-imagining policy problems. 
  • You will learn to innovatively think about public policy and programs. 
  • You will take away best practices to design and run a Design Lab and to generate measurable results. 
  • You will build your innovation skills and become a more creative problem solver for your organization. 

Core Skills

  • Applying design thinking, integrative thinking, and lateral thinking to reimagine policy problems and solutions.
  • Innovatively approaching public policy and program challenges to improve results and outcomes.
  • Utilizing best practices for fostering creativity and generating measurable results in policymaking.
  • Enhancing problem-solving skills to drive innovation within your organization.

Duration

  • 3 hours, including brief intervals to maintain participant engagement and enhance learning absorption.


Facilitators

Meghan Hellstern is a human-centered designer, strategist and facilitator with more than 12 years of experience who draws on a broad toolkit to gather insights that drive impact and change in support of the public good. Meghan works as a Senior Specialist, Innovation at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), where she uses design and other innovation methods to ensure that every Canadian can afford a home that meets their needs by 2030.

Prior to joining CMHC, Meghan was a Senior Project Designer at the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship (BII+E) where she led high-profile projects exploring a variety of critical policy topics including women’s entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence (AI). Before joining BII+E, she worked as the lead design strategist at the City of Toronto’s Civic Innovation Office, a Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded innovation team (i-team) dedicated to using human-centered design and data-informed decision-making to improve residents’ lives. She has also worked with organizations like Code for Canada, Laurier University’s Social Innovation and Venture Creation (SIVC), Samara Canada, the Oakville Public Library, and MaRS Solutions Lab, not to mention spending years working with the Government of Canada on a wide range of files from electoral reform and veterans affairs to
digital government and indigenous affairs.

Meghan contributes to her community in many ways, including designing and delivering the Ontario Digital Inclusion Summit, one of Ontario’s first conferences on the topic, co-founding Canada’s biggest civic tech community Civic Tech Toronto and sitting on the advisory board of the Digital Justice Lab. She also maintains a vibrant facilitation, consulting and teaching practice at places like Ryerson University’s Chang School of Continuing Education and the Institute on Governance in Ottawa.