A team of PACS and MPACS students secured second place in the annual campus-wide Map the System challenge after competing in the finals on April 15, 2021. Victoria Lumax (PACS), Blair Ashford (MPACS), and Jen Collins (PACS) won the second-place award of $1,000 (funded by UW's Council for Responsible Innovation and Technology) for their presentation exploring Food Insecurity at the University of Waterloo.
Map the System is an annual competition focusing on understanding a problem and its wider context, rather than jumping straight into a business plan or an idea for a quick fix. Individually or in a team, students select a social or enviornmental issue to explore, probe, and research all the connecting elements and factors around it. After campus finals, first place teams present at national and global finals (hosted by the University of Oxford). The team of PACS students met in Professor Paul Heidebrecht's special topics course called Map the System.
Over 200 students applied to participate this year through the University of Waterloo, representing nearly one fifth of Canadian registrations! On Thursday, April 15th, UWaterloo’s top six teams competed for the chance to move on to the Canadian finals. For their research on foreign labour conditions in Malaysian palm oil plantations, Muhammed Ahsanur Rahim, Ewomazino IyanuOluwa Odhigbo and Leah Feor received first prize and the opportunity to progress in the competition.
The virtual setting of Waterloo’s third annual Map the System competition did not dampen the enthusiasm of participating students, faculty and staff. Over 200 students comprising 52 teams of graduate and undergraduate students entered the competition this year, mapping societal problems with guidance from their professors, the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement, and Waterloo’s 2021 Map the System Campus Lead, Thomas Fraser. Under the 2021 theme of “Systems Reset”, students tackled systemic issues in health, climate, economic and social spheres.
Delia Lin, Josée Maurice and Lauren Forrest took home the third-place prize of $500 sponsored by the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI) for their research into the causes of Vaccine hesitancy in Canada and possible waysto address it in a culturally-sensitive manner. This team joined the 2021 competition through Professor Simron Singh’s International Development course Methods for sustainable development practice: A systems approach.
Congratulations to Muhammed Ahsanur Rahim, Ewomazino IyanuOluwa Odhigbo and Leah Feor for their outstanding work learning about the systems perpetuating Precarious conditions for foreign labour in Malaysian palm oil plantations. This team, brought together by Professor Singh's International Development course, received a grand prize of $2,000 donated by the Kindred Credit Union, and will be moving forward in the competition to represent the University of Waterloo in the Canadian finals.