Groupthink Labs, founded in 2025 by Sean Geobey and Gryphon Theriault-Loubier, joined the Grebel Peace Incubator earlier this year and has already made a significant mark within the Centre for Peace Advancement and greater Waterloo Region.
Groupthink Labs focuses on helping groups make decisions more efficiently and fairly. Their flagship Polls tool enables groups to prioritize options with different time or financial costs, or in situations where different stakeholder votes carry different weights. On the front end of their website, individuals can manually add in their information, for example, the total amount of funding available and the various project ideas. Participants rank what they believe the funds should go towards, and the back end generates the results. This process is adaptable, adjustable, and iterative. Groupthink lab recently collaborated with The Plan to End Chronic Homelessness (PECH) and helped over 50 stakeholder groups allocate over $200,000.
The founders of Groupthink Labs are deeply committed to innovation, community, and social finance. As well as being the Director and Head Research at Groupthink Labs, Sean is an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo and Director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI). He has also supported the Centre for Peace Advancement’s efforts with the Map the System competition by embedding aligned research projects in his courses.
Outside of being the Head of Programs for Groupthink Labs, Gryphon is a doctoral candidate at the UWaterloo School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) and the Program Manager for Strategic Design at the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR).
As part of the Grebel Peace Incubator Groupthink Labs is an active participant in weekly coffee breaks and monthly mentors' lunches and can access seed funding through the Peace Fund. Groupthink Labs is also making the most of the wider innovation ecosystem at the University of Waterloo by being part of the Accelerator Centre and accessing co-op student talent through the Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students (BETS) program.
“What the Centre for Peace Advancement offers is more than just space, it offers a community for people to support the practice mission-driven innovation. Being in a place where we can offer and receive peer support is critical to giving us the moral support we need to build value with our values.” - Sean Geobey
In less than a year, Groupthink Labs has established clients, student interns, and extensive networks. If you are part of a group that has a decision ahead, you can book a meeting with Sean and try the free version of polls to get a taste of this powerful tool for efficiency and inclusion.