Thank You For a Great 2015!

Hive Toronto Logo finalAs we begin the new year, Hive Toronto wanted to take an opportunity to reflect on some of the highlights of 2015 as a network!

Over the last year, we have welcomed new community organizations into Hive Toronto as well as seen some of our members hire more staff, outgrow space and expand their programming. Our members launched new apps to connect more people to makers in their community, held a clock making hackathon to show our solidarity with those finding their passion, educated youth and parents on the impacts of cyber bullying and built new relationships with national programming partners.

We also were sad and excited to see long-time staff members Kathryn Meisner and Karen Louise Smith move on to new adventures in academia and career coaching but who continue to be connected to the network in a variety of facets. Hive Toronto compiled a few highlights of 2015 to celebrate our continuous network building and community impacts.

Group PicHumber College students meet Mozilla staff to discuss their unique and diverse roles in tech

Highlights of 2015:

  1. Hive Toronto welcomed 21 new members bringing our total member to over 60 community organizations which include community health organizations, public libraries and museums, tech education and maker spaces to name a few.
  2. Success Beyond Limits held its 2015 March Break program out of the Mozilla Toronto community space. Focused on the theme  “Employment Readiness and Career Exploration”, youth were exposed to topics such as branding discussions, career awareness as well as post-secondary preparedness.
  3. Hive Toronto launched it’s privacy curriculum, “Co-designing Open Badges for Privacy Education“. The project was developed to enhance privacy education for teens in Canada. This project was conducted as a participatory design research project with teens, and it underwent ethical review at the University of Toronto.
  4. Utilizing the work of the Privacy Education curriculum, Maker Party 2015 was focused on empowering young women from the Burlington Public Library and the YWCA on understanding their online presence and how to protect their privacy on the web.
  5. Long time member, The Textile Museum of Canada launched its Making Makers website. An online tool for 21st-century makers to create community by contributing sites and sources of maker activities and resources across Canada!
  6. Our members led meaningful professional development opportunities for members like the Entrepreneurial Thinking workshop for educators hosted by the Mars Discovery District.
  7. Hive Toronto made its way to Ottawa to support the MediaSmarts Youth Summit with our privacy education curriculum.
  8. STEAMLabs rallied the troops to hold a clock-making workshop to demonstrate the value and potential of maker education.
  9. Ca.Appable Project, a project developed to meet the needs in Canada for youth and the educators who serve them to gain web literacy skills through app-creation and app design.
  10. The Holiday Party! This was an opportunity for Hive Toronto to say thank you for your continued support. We asked attendees to list things that we wanted to see in 2016, please look out for a new blog to discuss these recommendations.

holiday party

Updates from the Mozilla Foundation:

  1. Mozilla Foundation lays out the 2020 strategy with a focus on expanding advocacy and engaging leaders across industries and professions.
  2. Mozilla Leadership Network launches new platform that helps young people gain 21st century skills as they read, write and participate on the web

In the next few weeks, we will be posting a series of blogs about the Hive Toronto 2016 strategy which will highlight plans for a new membership cycle, increased engagement with our membership base located outside of the Toronto-core, resource updates as well as the new calendar for our community meetings and calls.

If you are interested in hosting a professional development meet-up, information session or contribute a blog about the work of your organization, please contact simona@mozillafoundation.org.

Thank you for making 2015 a memorable, truly inspiring year!