Greg Van Alstyne, David Ing, Zaid Khan, and Samah Kamalmaz
This is the second year that Systems Thinking Ontario (ST-ON) has held its regular monthly meetup online with the RSD symposium and the 137th meeting of ST-ON.
PART 1
Greg Van Alstyne’s talk covers the founding of sLab in 2008 at OCAD University and its evolution as a leading Canadian design research centre for strategic foresight and innovation, engaging a diversity of expertise to create sustainable solutions and meaningful change. sLab is recognised in the Social Innovation community as one of the earliest Social Labs in Canada. Rooted in a heritage of design thinking, our approach places human needs, desires, behaviour and culture at the heart of problem finding, problem framing, and problem solving.
sLab works to develop new knowledge, distributed opportunity, and social innovation by facilitating collaboration, co-creation, and community through the practice and evolution of participatory foresight and systemic design. Operating from Tkaronto (Toronto), Ontario, Canada, sLab motivates and mobilises designers and builders, business and policy professionals, teachers and students committed to envisioning possible futures, together.
From https://slab.ocadu.ca/about
PART 2
The talk is followed by presentations of recent papers by two ST-ON members.
Pacing Changes: Appreciating approaches to systems and designing by David Ing
Humbling Systemic Design: Learning when not to intervene in complex social systems by Zaid Khan and Samah Kamalmaz
Explore these and other early access papers https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10mB5zjbpRwW_8uatNIzJfYSrUUF-2bpY?usp=drive_link
More details
https://wiki.st-on.org/2025-09-11
This session is scheduled to align with ST-ON’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting, which takes place on the third Monday of each month, starting at 6:30 and typically concluding at 8:15 UTC-4. The inaugural ST-ON meeting was on December 12, 2012, and featured Ranulph Glanville.