Antony Upward portrait
Flourishing Enterprise Designer

Antony Upward is our lead facilitator for the Flourishing Enterprise Design workshop as well as a facilitator at our BigTent evets. 

is a Certified Management Consultant and Flourishing Enterprise Designer. He helps business leaders design businesses that are simply better: profitable, resilient, innovative, and aligned with their values.

This work builds on Antony's 25 years’ experience in the design and implementation of management information systems for companies such as Apple, Bell Canada, CGI and AT&T. More recently Antony has undertaken business model work for a number of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, and has worked with The Natural Step and B Lab on a new benchmark for truly sustainable business.

In addition, for over 10 years Antony designed and delivered undergraduate, graduate and professional courses at the Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University (Toronto) focused on the business case, people, process and technology aspects of improved business processes. Most recently he developed and delivered hands-on courses on Flourishing Enterprise Design which have been delivered internationally, including via the sLab's Ontario Centres of Excellence funded DesignJam program.

Location: 
Toronto
Affiliations: 
Strongly Sustainable Business Model Group Edward James Consulting Ltd. Flourishing Business Toolkit Project

DesignJam "TrafficJam" is an all-day innovation jamboree – a curated open space guiding more than a hundred design leaders & design learners, sharing ideas, tools & perspectives, to better understand & address a complex problem. Nicknamed "TrafficJam," DesignJam Toronto gathers young leaders, mentors, teams and aspiring entrepreneurs to conceive innovative user experiences and activate ideas to improve mobility in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area.

Design Jam 
 

The theme: “TrafficJam”: How can we improve mobility in our region?

Finding & meeting challenges & opportunities for improving traffic & transit in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area (GTHA) through design thinking, innovation & entrepreneurship.

 

How can we improve mobility in our region?


Facilitators & Mentors

Our spotlight is slated to feature great people including:

  • Adam Lawrence, service innovation director & co-initiator of Global Sustainability Jam, GovJam & Service Jam, the world's biggest service design event
  • Jennifer Leonard, founder of Brand New Ways, IDEO alumna, co-author of Massive Change
  • Peter Stoyko, Industry Canada service designer whose work visually unpacks urban mobility
  • Matti Siemiatycki, U of T expert in transportation policy, infrastructure, and planning
  • Roger Keil, York University research chair whose work illuminates global suburbanization
     

Workshop choices include

Creating
Better Futures

Strategic foresight

Mapping Mobility
Visual thinking & visual production

Making Systems Human-Centred
Service design thinking

Designing Flourishing Business
Sustainable business architecture

 

Schedule

9–10:30 am  Welcome, Orientation, Lightning Talks
10:30–12 am Morning Workshops
12–1:30 pm Food, fuel, music
1:30–3 pm Afternoon Workshops
3:30–4:15 pm   Workshop Reports & design critique
4:15–5pm Expert feedback & panel

 


For more information please contact: designjam@ocadu.ca

 

Ontario Centres of Excellence logo   Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs logoMaRS logo

 

Organized by Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) as part of OCAD University's Campus Linked Accelerator (CLA), DesignJam has support from OCE and ONE in partnership with MaRS and OCADU's Imagination Catalyst. We draw from methods and insights developed in OCADU's Strategic Foresight & Innovation (SFI) community, a unique graduate program creating new kind of designer: a strategist who sees the world from a human perspective and re-thinks what is possible; an innovator who imagines, plans and develops a better world.

How can we create & be part of enterprises that are financially rewarding, socially responsive, & environmentally regenerative: flourishing enterprises?

In this full-day experience you'll explore a new, visual, collaborative process for entrepreneurs, leaders & teams systematically to envision & design factors that enable flourishing enterprises. Then you'll get hands-on: using this process to explore the business model of a real flourishing business -- a Certified Benefit Corporation (B Corp) in the food sector. This new process is enabled by the Flourishing Business Canvas developed by members of the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Group (SSBMG) at OCAD University's sLab.

Flourishing Enterprise workshop at OCADU

Next you'll go deeper and apply what you've learned – taking on the role of a stakeholder in a new business aiming to be a B Corp in the apparel sector. Working with other participants you'll use the Flourishing Business Canvas to create a model that enables the possibility for all stakeholders to flourish economically, socially, personally & environmentally.

Come explore next-generation collaborative visual design tools for modeling flourishing enterprises in any sector. You'll leave, equipped to begin using the processes & tools to evaluate existing business models & envision models for new enterprises. 

In the first half you will:

  • Learn an innovative approach to co-creating business models based on economic, social, & environmentally-effective design principles
  • Gain appreciation of a Certified B Corp -- a third-party certification awarded to companies that demonstrate the possibility for flourishing -- environmentally, socially and economically
  • Explore next-generation, collaborative, visual, business design tools 
  • Apply the knowledge to develop your own skills as you help to design the business model for a new flourishing enterprise
  • Co-create the business model of a new enterprise
  • Work with other stakeholders inside & outside the organization (founder, employee, customer, community, etc.), using the Flourishing Business Canvas.

In the second half of this workshop you will:

  • Play the role of stakeholder for a new, for-profit business within a local Ontario-based "dirt-to-shirt in 500 km" network of farmers, manufacturers, retailers & consumers -- that aims to become a Certified Benefit Corporation.
  • Experience & explore a process enabling entrepreneurs & collaborative multi-stakeholder teams to envision and design factors necessary for flourishing enterprise
  • Get hands-on experience of the Flourishing Business Canvas, applying the knowledge gained earlier.

All will be invited to share in an appreciative design critique of the tools, offering feedback for its evolution and further development.

Refreshments and lunch are available for purchase at the CSI Annex Cafe -- the Coffee Pub -- which aims to help the whole CSI community flourish!


photo of Antony Upward

 Antony Upward (@aupward, Toronto) is a Certified Management Consultant with 26 years in design and implementation of management information systems for Apple, Bell Canada, CGI, AT&T and others. Antony is co-founder of the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Group hosted by the OCAD University Strategic Innovation Lab. He is a Sustainability Business Architect and principal of Edward James Consulting Ltd., a flourishing enterprise design consultancy in Toronto.  He is a recent grad from York U with a Masters of Environmental Studies in Business Model Design & Sustainability, where his thesis research originated the concept of the Flourishing Business Canvas.

  

 

photo of HarveyHarvey Weisfeld (@wisersol, Toronto) is principal of wiserSolutions, a Toronto-based consulting & coaching practice that specializes in helping social purpose enterprises design practical strategies & innovations to solve business problems. He bring together key stakeholders to find a shared language & context to co-create flourishing innovations, drawing on methodologies such as ‘Art of Hosting’ & ‘Appreciative Inquiry’. For over 25 years prior to starting his consulting practice, Harvey was a socially minded entrepreneur with experience across a variety of sectors including food, fashion & holistic health. He is a certified Holistic Experiential Psychotherapist HEP. He co-created & facilitated the Entrepreneurs Advisory Roundtables at the Centre for Social Innovation.

Facilitators

Flourishing... Big Picture

Implications for a Flourishing Enterprise

Flourishing is Good for Business

Flourishing Business Canvas

DesignJam Waterloo Region – a day-long innovation jamboree – guided more than a hundred design leaders & design learners, sharing ideas, tools & perspectives, to better understand & address a complex problem.

 

Nicknamed “Food&HousingJam,” DesignJam Waterloo gathered young leaders, mentors, teams & aspiring entrepreneurs to conceive innovative user experiences & activate ideas to improve food & housing security in the Kitchener & Waterloo Region through design thinking, innovation & entrepreneurship.

Coverage

This workshop enables you to experience, in a simulation, the co-creation of the business model of a new enterprise, with the other stakeholders from inside and outside the organization (founder, employee, customer, community etc.), using a new visual studio approach to designing flourishing business.

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