What’s Happening at Humber’s Centre for Social Innovation

Housing and Displacement

CommuniACTION Social Hack-a-thon

During January 2025, the Centre for Social Innovation and Longo’s Centre for Entrepreneurship at Humber Polytechnic co-hosted their second annual social hack-a-thon, this year in partnership with a non-profit organization called CP Planning. Interdisciplinary student teams were challenged to come up with creative solutions to community displacement due to development.

Over 33 students contributed to nine creative and thoughtful solutions, including co-op housing that supports single-parent households, as well as wraparound policy and service innovation to tackle gentrification and equip tenants with tools like financial literacy.

Impact Evaluation and Systems Change

Humber CSI Impact Evaluation

The CSI is developing a toolkit to facilitate effective impact evaluation throughout the Polytechnic. Every project or venture has a social impact, whether or not it is considered or measured, and Humber strives to be an intentional leader in positive community impact. Research continues with a deep dive into current social impact evaluation measures and frameworks. This student-led research will become foundational in the CSI’s future impact evaluation work.

Map the System at Humber

Map the System (MTS) at Humber, led by a faculty team from the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (FLAS), had an amazing sixth year of student projects. A whopping 100+ student teams from Humber participated, culminating in an incredible showcase at the Downtown Humber campus on May 1, 2025. Congratulations to FLAS faculty organizers Sara Hassan, Isabel Sousa, Stephen Stockton, and Elinor Bray-Collins; all the participating students as well as Yangshu (Kelly) Jiang and Maharshi Trivedi, the Humber students who were selected as one of the top 11 teams in this year’s Canadian Final. Thank you to all the faculty members and mentors who helped the students with this experience.

MTS is a global competition led by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University that looks at the root issues of complex problems. Last year, the first-place prize in the Canadian national-level competition was captured by Chandra (Nat) Limiarja, a Humber student in the Research Analyst Program in FLAS.

We continue to encourage faculty, volunteer mentors, and students to get involved by integrating it into the classroom, being mentors, or participating in the Humber’s local Map the System competition for 2026 or in the future. Learn more about how to get involved by emailing sara.hassan@humber.ca.