2021-11-16 Chasing Squirrels & Herding Kittens: Accessible Service Design in Government

Hosted by Jed Looker and CapCHI

CapCHI November 2021 event image

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) set out to improve services for people with disabilities through human-centred design with an Accessibility Design Challenge.

When we asked our clients about their experiences, we expected to hear about barriers with service touch points. But they told us so much more. Between policy, the built environment, websites and call centres, and with competing internal interests and a desire to chase shiny objects, keeping service design in scope was a challenge in itself.

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2021-10-19 We Are Cyborg – The Future of Implantable Tech with Tamara Banbury

Hosted by Anna Theus and CapCHI

CapCHI October 2021 event image

Pop culture assures us that cyborgs are inevitable but how might this cyborgian future begin? Will it be military tech that filters to public use like the internet, radar, or duct tape did? Will it be robotics tech that becomes medically effective such as motorized limb & joint prosthetics or eyeball cameras? Or will it be DIY grinders who build tech in their home workshops and jam it into their bodies just to see what happens? Would it surprise you to know that all 3 scenarios are happening all over the world today? What might the UX future look like when people have chip implants, video cam eyeballs, or neural antennae? What policies or regulations should be put in place before we all merge into the Borg?

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2021-05-18 Making Virtual Wishes A Reality

CapCHI May 2021 event image

How do you get past strict hospital privacy policies and infection control requirements so you can virtually grant last wishes for end-of-life patients? How does someone with Parkinson’s select a virtual reality video if they can’t grip the controller or keep their head steady to use the head-gaze feature of a VR headset? What does Schitt’s Creek, a group of nuns, and a super-charged monster truck have in common?

Find the answers to these and many more real-life challenges that David Parker tackled when pioneering VR for healthcare and palliative use.

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2021-04-20 Designing and Building Canada’s COVID-19 Exposure Notification Service

CapCHI April 2021 event image

Join Courtney Claessens (Senior Product Manager) and Brian Hendrick (Lead Service Designer and Product Manager) from the COVID Alert team, as they share the guiding principles that went into designing and building the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 exposure notification service.

Using principles such as accessibility and trust, Courtney and Brian will discuss how three multidisciplinary teams built a multi-region service in 45 days that helps alert users if they may have been exposed to COVID-19 before they are showing symptoms, allowing them to take action and help slow the spread of the virus. They’ll also share details on how they continue to iterate on and improve the service.

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2021-03-16 Exploring Interactive e-Textiles with Lee Jones

CapCHI March 2021 event image

E-textiles (electronic textiles) are interactive textiles with sensing and actuating properties. Imagine textiles that can sense touch, change colour, play music, or shift into different shapes, all while remaining soft and flexible. The unique aspect of e-textiles is that these fibres and materials can be combined with textile crafting techniques to make technologies that fit seamlessly into our lives, making them invisible.

Interactive textiles might sound like science fiction, but Lee has been exploring how artists and crafters can use e-textiles for their expressive and creative potentials. In this talk, Lee will go over some of the projects she has worked on and how individuals can craft soft technologies for their own needs.

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2021-02-16 Talking You.i TV Tech with CTOs Stuart Russell & Andrew Emmons

CapCHI February 2021 event image... Join us for a very special evening on Tuesday February 16th, 2021 at 6:00pm with You.i TV CTOs Stuart Russell and Andrew Emmons for an inside look at You.i Engine One, the technology behind the Kanata company's recent acquisition by WarnerMedia.

Join us for a very special evening with You.i TV CTOs Stuart Russell and Andrew Emmons for an inside look at You.i Engine One, the technology behind the Kanata company’s recent acquisition by WarnerMedia.

As per WarnerMedia, “The You.i platform will enhance the HBO Max technology stack, increase developer efficiency and accelerate delivery as we bring HBO Max to consumer devices all around the world”.

More about You.i TV and their recent acquisition:

WarnerMedia Acquires You.i TV

https://www.youi.tv/warnermedia-acquires-you-i-tv

WarnerMedia completes acquisition of Kanata’s You.i TV

https://www.obj.ca/article/techopia/warnermedia-completes-acquisition-kanatas-youi-tv

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2020-01-21 CapCHI meets Civic Tech: A Mixer!

Welcome back! Let’s start off the decade on a positive note by getting to know another amazing local community group: Ottawa Civic Tech! Members of Ottawa Civic Tech have been gathering and working on projects together for four years. During that time, they’ve fostered civic engagement between citizens, elected officials, and public servants; hosted over a hundred talks, including by a number of internationally renowned speakers, and; developed several unique civic-minded projects, such as the Meeting Cost Calculator, DemocracyKit, Is This Blocked in My Department, and Big Little Contracting.

This social mixer will be an informal way for the communities to meet and get to know each other. We’ll start the evening with a short introductory presentation from each group, and then leave the night open for mostly unstructured conversation. We’ll have a few back-up activities and games on hand to keep conversations moving, if necessary.

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