Ayesha Zubair is an insight professional in the financial services industry, with a background in HR. As part of RBC's internal management consulting team, Ayesha helps teams at the bank understand their landscape through actionable insights that lead to future-ready strategies. Prior to joining RBC's internal management consulting team, Ayesha was responsible for designing and delivering RBC's inaugural Voice of the Employee (VOE) program to enable employee experience, across the enterprise.
Outside work, Ayesha is actively involved in her community through philanthropic and advisory initiatives in Academia, Healthcare, Transportation and the Legislative industries, spanning both the public and private sector. She is passionate about mentoring and has been a mentor to youth with disabilities since 2008.
MRP Research Topic:
Resilient by Design: Enabling Agility and Resilience in Ontario's Small and Medium Enterprises
Alyza is a product and design strategist with expertise in social enterprise and early-stage start-ups. She champions a lean, human-centered approach to product that keeps users/customers at the forefront. Her background is in fintech for financial inclusion. She’s worked in seven different countries, most of which are in Africa, and travelled to many more on her quest to meet as many camels and drink as many cups of tea as she can.
MRP Project Topic:
Emma was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, and moved to Canada to complete a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Guelph. She is currently a student at OCAD university working towards a Master’s of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation.
Her Major Research Project (MRP) at OCAD centres around the futures of the digital platform economy and how tech can be used to foster fair, sustainable and prosperous ecosystems. Emma’s professional experience started in the hospitality industry, where she learnt how important a human-centred approach in business can be. Today, she works at CIBC within their Digital Strategy and Innovation team.
MRP Project Topic:
Technology for good: A systems exploration into the future of the digital platform economy
Stephanie is a foresight strategist and former finance professional that is passionate about re-envisioning inclusive and equitable futures. With a background in research, finance and business, Stephanie enjoys simplifying complexities and solving social problems. Prior to the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program at OCAD University, she worked in finance for a decade, developing expertise in financial planning, strategic analysis and reporting. She is currently a foresight designer with the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) Futures Lab, where she uses strategic foresight to explore how trends shaping the digital economy may impact tax compliance.
Stephanie has a Bachelors of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) designation, and a soon-to-be Master of Design in Strategic Foresight & Innovation from OCAD University.
Tanvi Nayar is a candidate of the MDes, Strategic Foresight and Innovation program at OCAD University and a graduate of the University of the Arts London.
She is broadly interested in the historical landscape of capitalism and fashion, value relations in the sector, commodity frontiers, and the entangled histories of fashion and ecology. She is specifically interested in the human dimension of fashion at the intersection of culture, tradition and spirituality.
Tanvi’s research brings together methods from art, design, and the social sciences to study issues of sustainability, with an emphasis on localism and culturally oriented practices of fashion provision.
Tanvi is currently working with a network of artisans in India on indigenous production practices centered around fashion provision that prioritizes human and ecological flourishing.
Localism as Flourishing: A Vision for the Futures of the Fashion Sector
Susan Wright creates clarity and new perspectives in ambiguous and challenging leadership and organizational contexts. With over 20 years in both public and private sectors, Susan has experience in designing and developing strategic initiatives and programs, and facilitating organizational and people development across portfolios and practices. Susan currently works at Home and Community Care Support Services (part of Ontario Health), collaborating across the Central region to support leaders and initiatives for organizational and health system change.
Susan is currently finishing the Masters of Design (MDes) Strategic Foresight and Innovation Program at OCADU and is a Certified Professional Coach (PCC). Susan served as a Director on the Board for Advanced Gerontological Aging Inc. (AGE) and is Past President of the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Toronto Chapter. Susan lives in Toronto with her husband, two teenage boys and a toddler, who was welcomed into this world one year into pursuing her masters degree!
MRP Topic:
Navigating Older Adult Care: A Stakeholders and Systems Perspective
Khuyen Forsythe (she/her) is working at the intersection of strategy, organizational transformation, and design thinking. After finishing her Bachelor of Design at NSCAD University, she freelanced for 8 years working with organizations as a multi-disciplinary designer doing UX, graphic, and product design.
In her graduate work, she has written on strategy, organizational design, and design thinking, while her current interests are facilitating empowering experiences to stakeholders and building creative capacity within organizations.
She is an expert on the design process from framing problems to implementing solutions, and sees her higher purpose as helping people help themselves.
MRP Project:
Turn and Face the Strange: Shifting Organizational Paradigms with Participatory Design
Shahria is an innovation strategist and UX researcher. Before moving to Toronto for school, he worked as a UX researcher for the telecom industry of Bangladesh. Over his eight-year diverse career, he served as a support agent, trainer, network engineer, content manager, consultant, and digital marketer.
Shahria’s design portfolio includes multi-disciplinary projects in the field of eCommerce, digital self-care, strategy & service design.
Shahria also co-founded two startups in Bangladesh where he served as CEO for two years.
MRP Project:
Stitching A Broken Future: How resilience can shape the future of an ‘unheard’ community
Website: www.2rzo.me
I am an experienced designer who is passionate about creating functional designs and products that solve problems. I have been fortunate enough to gain a diverse range of experience in my career, designing for digital, print, video and products across various industries.
I currently work as a user experience designer in the technology sector and work on both enterprise and consumer-facing applications from start to finish. I've worked on designing applications for enterprise-scale planning software, hospitality point of sale systems, self-serve kiosks, weather applications and more. In my spare time,
I am also passionate about health and wellness which is what led me to my MRP and research.
MRP Project:
Wellness and Work: Redefining Strategies for Women as Workplaces and Economies Evolve
Michelle is a design researcher and strategist with experience working in the public, private, and social sectors. She supports clients on diverse projects including strategic foresight, participatory research, workshop facilitation, and innovation training.
Prior to strategic design Michelle worked with non-profits in Canada, Nicaragua, East Africa and Cambodia to implement and evaluate community-led programs. Michelle holds a BA in Sociology and Psychology from Queen’s University, a Certificate Degree in International Development from Humber College, and is a candidate in the Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation graduate program at OCAD U
MRP Topic:
Unpacking Power Dynamics in International Development: A Causal Layered Analysis
