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Waterfront Toronto is building a new river in downtown Toronto and we want you to be a part of it.

As you may have heard, Waterfront Toronto is in the middle of building a new mouth for the Don River. The $1.25 Billion project, known as the Port Lands Flood Protection Project (PLFP), will protect 240 hectares of downtown Toronto from flooding, in addition to restoring important ecological areas to support diverse fish and wildlife.

In order to track progress and measure outcomes of this important work, Waterfront Toronto and our partners have been working to capture a wide array of environmental data on the  new river mouth and the natural systems that support it. Much of this information will be used by scientists and engineers within the PLFP project and to inform potential future projects down the road. However, Waterfront Toronto sees other potential uses for this data, and we want you to help us come up with innovative ways to use it.

The question is: How do we collect, interpret and share the environmental data from these new ecosystems to  educate visitors and motivate conservation in the wider community?

In this challenge, we invite data scientists and designers to develop creative, compelling, and innovative ways to communicate this scientific information to the public. Our intent is to leverage our partnerships and the data we generate to foster innovation in science communication. The outcome will be to stimulate interest and knowledge about how climate positive urban development interacts with natural systems; to share this information with the people who will use and enjoy the river valley; and to encourage stewardship of the river’s water, wildlife and habitats.

What are we looking for? 

Proposals that use a physical and/or digital platform to convey environmental data from the PLFP project to visitors and community members in a way that promotes environmental stewardship and conservation.

Some examples include:

• https://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/citizen-science-apps/
• https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/citizen-science/

Who should participate? 

This challenge encourages multi-disciplinary collaboration and is open to a wide variety of experts including designers, scientists, engineers, computer scientists and others from private, public or nonprofit sectors. We encourage corporate applicants to consider opportunities to include students or young professionals on their team.

Opportunity

$10,000 award for the top three proposals and a $30,000 honorarium for the top team to advance their proposed design.

The deadline to submit a proposal has been extended to May 30, 2021.