Date: Aug 04, 2020
Topic: Making Civic Spaces: Public Interest Tech in TO
This presentation is intended to update the CTTO community on Curtis McCord’s dissertation research on CTTO, as it approaches its final phase. We’ll recap some of the original research interests and the methodology, and explore preliminary findings that describe the social world of ‘public interest technology’ in Toronto, and where CTTO finds its niche. From here, we can begin to explore some of the research themes that have emerged from interviews, fieldwork, and discussions, and how these can be valuable to the CTTO community, for example through documentation and workshops. The presentation will aim to be brief, with potential for more conversation afterwards!
Speakers:
- Curtis McCord – Curtis McCord is a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, where his research examines public engagement processes and technology development. To do this, Curtis takes an interdisciplinary approach that blends methods and frameworks from Systems Thinking, Science and Technology Studies, Political Communications, and Human-Computer Interaction. Past projects have included a deconstruction of Budget Talks, Ontario’s digital pre-budgetary consultation, an examination of Sidewalk Toronto’s engagement methods and project scope, as well as collaborations on critical approaches to requirements engineering. Curtis has been attending Civic Tech Toronto since 2015, and for the last year, has been volunteering at CTTO as part of his dissertation research.