Welcome to Smart Waterloo Region’s information hub!

Calling all young folks in Waterloo Region - we want to hear from you!

Waterloo Region has been shortlisted in a national Smart Cities Challenge, with a one in five chance of winning $50 million. Our project focuses on improving the well-being of children and youth. To win, we need ideas and input from youth (11-18 years of age)!

Join us on January 12th for our Youth Forum co-designed for local youth, by youth - so you know it will be fun! The day will be filled with exciting activities, conversations and games. All of the activities are designed to make sure your voice is heard!

Complete with food, prizes, giveaways, and the chance to make new friends - come out and share your thoughts and feedback on how to make Waterloo Region THE BEST community in Canada for young people!

Register here: https://bit.ly/2rRPRdb

Ideas are found everywhere, and everyone has meaningful ideas to share! We want to hear all of the wonderful and insightful ideas children and youth have to offer!

Our new Idea Toolkit has been designed for people who work or spend time with children and youth. Made to engage children ages 4 and up, our toolkit includes instructions about how to help collect ideas, share feedback and host fun conversations!

Not sure how to get a conversation started? We've got you covered! Check out our quick online tutorial here! Be sure to share your feedback on our website here.

Help us generate ideas to make our community the best in Canada for young people!

A big thank you to our partners, service providers, children and youth, and families who helped us celebrate the launch of Smart Waterloo Region! It was a huge success, and we couldn't have done it without you!

On November 20th, we hosted a community wide launch event at three locations across the region, in Kitchener, Cambridge and Elmira. We started the day with a presentation and panel discussion at Catalyst 137 in Kitchener. The panel included project partners, tech experts and youth, who were asked to reflect on how we can work together to improve child and youth well-being in Waterloo region.

Later in the afternoon, families and community members were invited to drop-in style events at the three locations. We invited attendees to take part in activities to collect their input on how we can use technology and data to improve child and youth well-being. All of the amazing feedback we collected will inform our project to improve child and youth well-being in our community and beyond.

If you missed it, please enjoy the recorded presentation and panel below from beginning to end!

Help us kick-off our Smart Waterloo Region project by joining us on November 20th from 4pm-7pm! We're hosting fun drop-in style events for children, youth, families and community members across the region.

Come and learn about our project and how we are working together to improve child and youth well-being in our community! Take part in fun and interactive activities, and enter for a chance to win an amazing door prize for guests who stop by!

Help us become the best community in Canada for children and youth! Join us at one of our three locations from 4-7pm:

• Kitchener – Catalyst 137 (137 Glasgow Street)
  
• Cambridge – Idea Exchange (12 Water Street South - Old Post Office)
  
• Elmira – Riverside Public School (250 William Street)

Your input matters, we hope to see you there!

After being shortlisted, our team used the summer to organize and engage different stakeholder groups to narrow our focus, and to begin to identify root causes of the complex issues children and youth in our community face.

On June 21st, we held a joint engagement event with the Children and Youth Planning Table to dive into the six focus areas identified in our Phase 1 application: early childhood development, literacy, mental and emotional health, sense of belonging, bullying, and high school graduation rates. Youth and service providers came together to take part in a day long session to drill down into the root causes of these issues. We came out of the day with a fulsome problem map and decided to narrow our focus from six areas to four: early childhood development, literacy, mental and emotional health, and sense of belonging. You can see the report on the Children and Youth Planning Table Resources & Research page.

During July and August we updated our governance and working group structures in preparation for Phase 2. We also met with many new and potential partners from the private, post-secondary and non-profit sectors.

In August, we hosted another engagement session with youth attendees to assess if our four focus areas are meaningful to youth, and to determine how youth want to be engaged in our Smart Waterloo Region project going forward. We hosted our youth engagement session in Google’s community space where we captured meaningful and lively feedback. Youth confirmed that our four focus areas are of importance to them and we gained insight into how they wish to be engaged going forward.

We are excited to move into Phase 2 to improve well-being for children and youth on our community. Moving forward, we are planning a launch event on November 20th, creating a youth engagement and advisory committee, and have brought on Overlap Associates to help us develop creative ways to engage the community.

There is much more to come! Be sure to visit this page regularly for updates and feedback on how our project is progressing. Remember to follow us on Twitter: @SmartWatRegion and Instagram: @SmartWatRegion, and to use the hashtag #SmartWR.

For more information on the history of our project, please see the post below: Smart Waterloo Region - A Short History.

Are you interested in getting involved in SWR? We want to hear from you!

Contact Jill Kolb, our Community Engagement Coordinator, for fun and meaningful ways to get involved!

Waterloo Region - Today, the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, announced Waterloo region as one of five finalists in the large municipalities category of the Smart Cities Challenge, a new, competition-based approach that encourages communities to come up with innovative solutions to their most pressing challenge.