Waterloo student shines on a national stage

Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Fiona Li presenting at Map the System Canada Finals

Fiona Li, a Master of Peace and Conflict Studies student at Conrad Grebel University College, and the winner of the University of Waterloo’s Map the System campus finals, earned the second-place prize at the Map the System Canada competition in Calgary on May 27.

Map the System is an opportunity for students to research complex social and environmental challenges using a systems thinking lens. Fiona partnered with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Ontario to investigate the significant over-representation of Indigenous women in Canadian prisons.

The competition began with a semi-final round on May 26 hosted by the University of Calgary’s Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking, where six out of twenty individuals and teams from across the country were selected to present the following day at the Bella Concert Hall at Mount Royal University. Watch the recording of Fiona’s presentation (17 minutes, starting at 2:22:18) and her receiving the prize (40 seconds starting at 5:06:00).

Fiona was awarded a cash prize of $3,000 for her efforts, and is also eligible for up to $10,000 in “apprenticing with the problem” funding from Map the System Canada.

The overall winner was a student from the Humber Institute for Technology and Advanced Learning; the third-place prize went to a team from the University of Sherbrooke. Additional prizes went to students from the University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, Centennial College, the University of Manitoba, Memorial University, and the University of New Brunswick.