Marcia Young still remembers the obituaries.
As a child growing up in Jamaica, she would listen to radio news broadcasts, where the hosts would mix obituaries in with their regular news programming. These moments, according to Young, were more than just any other news bulletin – they were a way to bring people together from across the island.
Young, who now hosts CBC Radio’s World Report, told this story in front of a diverse crowd of university and community leaders and practitioners at the W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology (W Booth School)’s third annual Opportunity Marketplace to underscore the crucial role that knowledge plays in community-building.
Because, as Young puts it, “knowing is the first step in connecting.”
This year’s event – Building Canada’s Future: What matters most? – brought together 130 local leaders, with more joining virtually from the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Atlantic Canada, to discuss Canada’s future in the face of increasingly urgent threats, including energy security, housing affordability, access to quality health care and wildfires.
“These challenges are vast and interconnected. No one can solve them alone,” explains Salman Bawa, community engagement coordinator at the W Booth School and co-founder of the event series.
“Progress requires bringing together knowledge, resources and creativity—the kind of collaboration this marketplace is designed to spark.”
Following Young’s keynote address in which she explored the necessity of interconnection and community-building, McMaster Engineering experts were joined on-stage by a diverse group of researchers and leaders in the Greater Hamilton Area, including economists, political scientists and social scientists, to explore how universities and our communities can work together to shape a strong, resilient nation.
“Canada’s future will not be built by engineers alone, nor by politicians or entrepreneurs in isolation,” says Brian Baetz, director of the W Booth School. “It will be built by communities coming together to solve problems that matter. It will be built in classrooms, community gatherings and research labs. And it will be built by people who believe progress is not just possible but shared.”
These discussions, focused on sparking action, spanned a wide range of pressing issues, from the benefits of waste heat capture and reducing the healthcare industry’s outsized carbon footprint, to advancing sustainable home building practices and developing strategies to mitigate the growing threat of wildfires.
Dialogue is only the beginning. We need spaces where partnerships grow, where hope for prosperity is kept alive for our youth, and where together we build a Canada that is resilient, inclusive and forward-thinking. When our powers combine, remarkable things can happen.
In the spirit of moving beyond dialogue and turning ideas into action, the organizers are set to develop a post-event report that identifies key opportunities that were discussed at this event with the goal of turning them into community-engaged projects for McMaster’s faculty, staff and students.
