What’s New
We are excited to announce some BIG news! The CityStudio Vancouver Society has been developing our two channels, defined as Vancouver Program and Global Sharing. With Executive Director Duane Elverum at the helm of CityStudio Vancouver, the organization has created two new local leadership roles.
“As CityStudio prepares for its second decade, these two new positions allow us to increase our program services and project development for our Vancouver school partners and the City of Vancouver. With this greater local capacity, we also increase our ability to share learnings and insights with the growing CityStudio network in Canada and internationally. When one of us grows, we all grow.” – Duane Elverum
New Roles & New Capacity
We are delighted to announce that Miriam Esquitín has accepted the role of Director of the Vancouver Program. Many of you might know Miriam as CityStudio’s General Manager. In her new role she will respond to the growing potential and need from local partners.
“It’s very exciting because this new position formalizes with our partners (the City of Vancouver, UBC, SFU, BCIT, Langara and ECUAD) our intention to deepen and invigorate our relationships. The current challenges in city building with equity and sustainability, as well as post-secondary education transformation, heightens the need and possibilities of Vancouver youth as agents of social change co-creating with planners at City Hall.”
Our team is also thrilled to share that Ileana Costrut has moved into the newly developed role of Senior Projects Coordinator, meaning CityStudio Vancouver has doubled its capacity to create projects for Vancouver partners. This growth offers new potential as her new role investigates the boundless ways Cities and schools can work together for civic benefit.
“This role is an exciting evolution of our work. The project ideas we receive from City staff range from light touch engagement to deep and complex challenges that can benefit from new approaches. There is so much potential at post-secondary institutions that we’re not currently connected to: graduate students, researchers and scholars, makerspaces, research clusters, interdisciplinary labs, and centres of excellence. This
new role and capacity at CityStudio Vancouver is an invitation for
partners to imagine what else we can do together to build better cities.”
The Next 10 Years: 2021-2031
We are starting right now, with the people and the organizational structure to respond to deeper opportunities for students, faculty and researchers to get more directly involved in city building and civic action. We continue to bring youth to the strategic table on work around the Vancouver Plan, Climate Emergency Plan, and more. Our ninth year has been filled with new and unexpected challenges that have forced us to adapt to a pandemic, and reflect on our systemic racial biases. Our larger capacity brings the opportunity to explore and adapt to these challenges while being ready for the unknown.
These changes mark the end of our first decade and the start of our next ten years as an innovation hub for City staff, students, faculty, and community. With this larger capacity and with strong, dedicated leadership for the Vancouver Program we will continue to advance our mission to innovate and experiment with the ways cities are co-created, while teaching students the skills needed for today’s pressing challenges and inspire action in the community and government.
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