Scarborough

A transformative $25-million investment from Scarborough-based entrepreneur Sam Ibrahim will establish the Sam Ibrahim Centre for Inclusive Excellence in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Leadership at ��Ƶ Scarborough (UTSC) – taking the region’s innovation ecosystem to the next level and equipping student entrepreneurs with the tools and resources they need to flourish.

The Sam Ibrahim Centre will leverage the university’s vast pool of research and innovation expertise and global networks to provide entrepreneurs at U of T Scarborough with connections, resources and learning opportunities that can help accelerate their ideas and ventures. It will also encourage student entrepreneurs to develop their ideas directly in Scarborough, helping to spur economic growth for the Eastern GTA.

“The ��Ƶ is renowned for its entrepreneurship network,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “Sam Ibrahim’s visionary partnership with the University will help us enhance our impact on innovation in the Eastern GTA and show the world that U of T Scarborough is a vibrant hub for amazing, inclusive excellence in entrepreneurship.

“At the Sam Ibrahim Centre, our student entrepreneurs will have what they need to start and grow the next generation of Canadian ventures.”

Campus-led accelerators at U of T Scarborough will be aligned to offer the complete portfolio of coaching for successful entrepreneurs at the Sam Ibrahim Centre, which will extend their reach and impact and foster new collaborations. The Sam Ibrahim Centre will allow U of T Scarborough to expand on the programming these accelerators offer, support outreach activities such as work-integrated learning opportunities and lecture series and enhance the Eastern GTA’s broader innovation ecosystem by creating a network of new entrepreneurial leaders in the region.

“This partnership with Sam Ibrahim will allow UTSC to play a key role in helping to develop the next generation of Scarborough-based entrepreneurs,” said Wisdom Tettey, U of T vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough. “A core mission of the Centre is to ensure its innovators embody leadership values that promote Sam and U of T’s commitments to inclusive and equitable communities. We are all excited about the enduring legacy of creativity and impact that this will ignite.”

Equity and inclusion will be central to the Sam Ibrahim Centre’s activities. As part of this core commitment, student entrepreneurs who face financial barriers will be eligible for three new awards generously established by Ibrahim as part of this investment: the Sam Ibrahim Awards, the Gabriel Fanous Awards, and the Shaemin Ukani Awards.

“The Sam Ibrahim Centre will help inspire UTSC’s students to dream big, chase the impossible – and bring others along with them,” said Neel Joshi, dean of student experience and wellbeing at U of T Scarborough. “It will be a place that ignites hope and serves as a catalyst for real economic change fueled by inclusive excellence.”

Arrow Innovation Hall (Rendering by CEBRA and ZAS Architects + Interiors)

The centre will convene renowned leaders and experts, including through two new positions established by this investment: the Sam Ibrahim Chair in Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Innovation, who will lead the vision for the centre, and an entrepreneur-in-residence, who will provide valuable mentorship to up-and-coming innovators.

This new partnership will also support the construction of the Sam Ibrahim Building on Military Trail. Set to open in 2024, the building will act as a central hub for U of T Scarborough’s North Campus, housing the Sam Ibrahim Centre as well as Student Services offices and spaces for the department of computer and mathematical sciences.

“Scarborough is home to so many young people with great ideas,” Ibrahim said. “As a Scarborough entrepreneur myself, I want to make sure that the next generation can start and scale their ventures right here.”

Ibrahim is a noted business leader in Scarborough who strongly believes in the capabilities of the community and is deeply invested in it. He is the president and general manager of the Arrow Group of Companies, which provides strategic consulting and talent solutions to a wide range of industries. He is also a familiar face at U of T Scarborough as the co-founder of the Scarborough Shooting Stars, the first Greater Toronto Area-based franchise of the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL). The Shooting Stars play at the campus’s Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre.

This is one of the largest contributions ever received by U of T Scarborough and Ibrahim’s first to the university, making it one of the largest ever to U of T from a first-time donor.

“I would like to thank Sam Ibrahim for his vision,” said David Palmer, vice-president, advancement. “His philanthropic investment is one of the largest ever for the Eastern GTA and is sure to inspire others to support Scarborough’s diverse and growing community at this exciting time for the region.”

Ibrahim’s philanthropic investment is contributing to Defy Gravity: The Campaign for the ��Ƶ. Under the banner of inclusive excellence, Defy Gravity seeks to harness the power of the university's worldwide community of alumni, faculty, students and supporters to create the talent, innovations and solutions for today’s most pressing challenges. As the largest advancement campaign in Canadian history, Defy Gravity is raising the bar for engagement and charitable giving in this country and fueling U of T’s mission as one of the world’s largest engines of social mobility and progress.

Watch a livestream of the announcement

U of T's Andre Sorensen on why a proposed LRT is the real city-building opportunity for Scarborough

ullahnor — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 16:02:22 +0000

U of T's Andre Sorensen on why a proposed LRT is the real city-building opportunity for Scarborough

ullahnor Tue, 03/28/2017 - 12:02

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Mayor John Tory (centre) speaks to the media at a press conference at Kennedy Station last month about a report on the Scarborough subway (photo by Vince Talotta/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Topic

Toronto City Council is expected to debate and vote today on the proposed subway extension along the McCowan corridor to the Scarborough Town Centre.

Professor Andre Sorensen, chair of the department of human geography at U of T Scarborough, talks about what's at stake, and why the proposed LRT lines should be the top rapid transit priority for Scarborough.

Rendering of a proposed LRT courtesy of Bombardier

There is no question that Toronto needs to expand rapid transit capacity, coverage, speed and convenience as quickly as we possibly can. The population of the region continues to grow rapidly, yet a lack of investment in transit over several decades means that much of the inner and outer suburbs remain woefully auto-dependent. The result has been a growing crisis of congestion that costs more than $6 billion per year according to the Toronto Board of Trade, threatens the economic vitality of the region and limits new investment in inner suburbs like Scarborough. The lack of rapid transit imposes costs particularly on low-income residents of the inner suburbs, who would most benefit from improved transit for access to jobs and services.

Over the last decade, Scarborough has been the focus of major debates over transit investment. Under former mayor David Miller, a Light Rail (LRT) 'Transit City' plan was approved by council, designed and engineered, and fully funded by the province. The plan focused on a set of LRT lines throughout the inner suburbs. This plan was under construction when Rob Ford was elected mayor in 2010, and Ford's first act as mayor, before even being sworn in, was to call then-head of the TTC Gary Webster to a 7 a.m. meeting where he unceremoniously – and without legal authority, it was later revealed – cancelled the Transit City plan.

This act ranks as one of Toronto's greatest transit planning disasters, as by throwing out a fully approved, engineered and funded transit plan, Ford delayed transit expansion in Toronto by a decade, and opened the door on years of conflict over a new approach. Shortly before the 2014 election for mayor, city council agreed to a new plan that included an extension of the Bloor subway from Kennedy to Scarborough Town Centre, and during the election John Tory promised to invest in his SmartTrack plan to create a new transit line based on improvements to, and more stations along, the GO Transit rail corridors. Mayor Tory now promises to build SmartTrack, the subway extension and a revived LRT plan to extend the Eglinton Crosstown LRT east from its currently planned terminus at Kennedy all the way to the ��Ƶ Scarborough at Ellesmere Road and Military Trail. Funding is still being negotiated for all these projects, and none have yet completed detailed engineering and planning phases.

In one of a very few detailed evidence-based contributions to this debate, Paul Hess and I researched and published a report in 2015 that compared the three main options for transit investment in Scarborough: SmartTrack, subway extension and Transit City LRT network, on the basis of the number of existing residents and jobs each new transit facility would serve, and the potential for property redevelopment to allow intensification of population and jobs within walking distance of new transit stops.

The result was clear – the Transit City LRT plan with lines along Eglinton to Kingston Road, Morningside Road and U of T Scarborough, a renovation of the SRT line and the Sheppard line from Fairview Mall to Morningside Road far outperformed both the subway and SmartTrack on every measure. The LRT network can be built more quickly, would serve trips both within Scarborough and to downtown, and would create more potential for investment in housing, employment and services in Scarborough. Crucially, the major opportunity for the creation of walkable, transit-oriented communities in Scarborough is through mid-rise intensification along the east-west arterial corridors, such as Eglinton and Sheppard Avenues, which can best be served by LRT lines. The superior performance of LRT is not only because it offers greater coverage and more stops, but because it represents a much better fit with existing urban form and patterns of population and jobs in Scarborough.

We concluded that it would be a terrible mistake if the investment in a subway extension and SmartTrack means that the LRT network is delayed further or cancelled. That conclusion still holds today: the proposed LRT lines should be the top rapid transit priority for Scarborough.

Scarborough: A laboratory for new suburbanism

lavende4 — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 13:46:45 +0000

Scarborough: A laboratory for new suburbanism

lavende4 Tue, 09/27/2016 - 09:46

Cutline

Scarborough Town Centre (Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Holly Fraser

Author legacy

Holly Fraser

Topic

What if the suburbs were actually the centre of a city? A collection of urban islands—complete communities for residents to work, dine, shop, gather with friends and family, and travel throughout with multiple transportation options.

U of T researchers, city planners, politicians and residents are looking to groups like the Institute for New Suburbanism to bridge the conversation of how we can better plan the space of our suburbs to meet the broad needs of its residents by creating comprehensive neighbourhoods within the larger city framework.

“These days, if you’re a millennial and want to buy a house in Toronto, you almost need to be a millionaire. So when millennials seek less expensive housing in suburban areas, they’re looking for typically urban uses—a coffee shop, live theatre and music, and locations to meet others and have interesting conversations,” says Dave Hardy, a registered professional planner and executive director of the Institute for New Suburbanism.

Hardy notes that millennials look to areas that provide convenience of movement and urban amenities. This shouldn’t seem too idyllic for Scarborough, which was built from a history of villages and already offers entry points for the Institute’s vision.

“We hope to grow the story of Scarborough by enhancing the quality of life of its residents through community planning, design and development,” says Morgen Peers, managing director for the Institute of New Suburbanism, at the Institute’s launch event on September 15 in Scarborough. He says we need to overcome the notion of ‘downtown’ as the only city centre, and instead, better plan suburbs to meet the broad needs of its residents.

As an anchor institution, U of T Scarborough has room to grow, as outlined in its Master Plan. Researchers from the University, including Professor André Sorensen, expert of urban planning and chair of the department of human geography at UTSC; and U of T Professor Paul Hess, an expert in pedestrian and transportation design, co-authored Choices for Scarborough: Transit, Walking and Intensification in Toronto’s Inner Suburbs last year.

Sorensen, a featured speaker at the Institute launch, says a change in thinking would be to start to design the suburbs to be less automobile dependent.

“This would be a major change and Toronto, especially Scarborough, is well positioned to be a world-leader in transforming its inner suburbs away from automobile dependence and towards places where residents have a genuine choice of travel modes and can enjoy living in complete communities.”

Sorensen stresses this isn’t an anti-car conversation, rather a discussion of livability and building infrastructure that is highly competitive with cars and able to connect with regional transit systems. Using Eglinton, Lawrence and Sheppard as examples, Sorensen says these are ideal potential corridors to create mid-rise, mixed-use space that would function like boulevards.

“These streets are wide—double the width of downtown streets like Bloor—they can accommodate dedicated transit lines, two car lanes in each direction, bicycle lanes and wide sidewalks—everything you need for a high-quality boulevard that’s a complete community in itself in a linear form,” he says.

Mayor John Tory and the City of Toronto are listening. Tory spoke to the importance of the Institute for New Suburbanism and says Scarborough stands out as a unique community with a distinct lifestyle, with its residents leading its transformation and development.

“In the face of increasing infrastructure challenges, it is critical that we study the suburbs and explore opportunities to further develop and grow these communities,” says Tory.

The Institute will engage Scarborough, the GTA and like-minded people around the world in four areas of conversation: Integrated community planning, research and dialogue, neighbourhood design, and, mobility and town centres.

The Institute will host its next event with Judith De Jong, a leading expert of design innovation in architecture and urbanism, on October 12.

The Scarborough transit debate: Let's move forward, says UTSC's Bruce Kidd

lavende4 — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 20:02:54 +0000

The Scarborough transit debate: Let's move forward, says UTSC's Bruce Kidd lavende4 Mon, 07/11/2016 - 16:02

Cutline

Scarborough community, business and academic leaders have written to Toronto city council with their concerns over transit (Photo by Alex Consiglio/Getty)

Romi Levine

Shelley Romoff

Author legacy

Shelley Romoff and Romi Levine

Topic

The subject of transit and transit planning in Toronto generates considerable interest and debate. Tomorrow Toronto City Council is voting on Mayor John Tory’s Executive Committee proposal to develop Toronto’s transit plan until 2031, a plan includes heavy rail, LRT stops and subway.

Shelley Romoff spoke to U of T Vice President and U of T Scarborough Principal Bruce Kidd about the proposal and about steps taken by community leaders to address the issue.

Five public sector leaders in Scarborough have gotten together and taken the step of writing an open letter to the Mayor and City councillors about transit. What prompted this?

It’s simple. Almost one in every five Torontonians – 24 per cent of the population, over 625,000 people - lives in Scarborough. Yet transit in this area of the city is woefully inadequate, and Scarborough has been repeatedly overlooked when it comes to transit investment. This has negatively impacted development – scaring developers off of some projects and even spoiling the chance others could even be considered. Residents are frustrated. As leaders of the four of the largest public institutions in the east end of Toronto – institutions that serve over a half million people, Robert Biron (The Scarborough Hospital), Ann Buller (Centennial College), Andrée Robichaud (Rouge Valley Health System), and I, as well as Margaret Middleton (Scarborough Business Association) who represents the business community, agree that we have an obligation to speak up. As we say in our letter, the challenge faced by residents, businesses and institutions in this part of the city is urgent.

What does Scarborough need when it comes to mass transit and pubic transit?

First, we need to all understand that the debate – which has been going on for much longer than just the last few years – is divisive as well as time-consuming. There have been several different plans presented over the past decade. While each has merit, the un-ending discussion is affecting Scarborough’s, and Toronto’s, future.

We need comprehensive transit planning for the future. We need predictability, and results. We need to bring back confidence to planners, developers and to taxpayers.

Connecting Scarborough Town Centre to the subway makes good sense. This will create an express line to help people move to and from the downtown core to what is already an important multi-regional transit hub.

Exending the Eglinton LRT much farther east makes good sense, too. This will enormously benefit those who live in Scarborough and move around the area, and ultimately, reduce vehicular traffic.

What outcome will, in your view, present a way forward?

There is a cost to lost opportunity as well as a cost to implementing plans – it’s just hard or harder to measure. We can’t afford to keep stalling. Even though financial requirements for comprehensive transit plans may exceed what we can afford today, we still need innovative, creative planning or the future that can be implemented over a period of time.

Let’s approve and allocate funds for a comprehensive approach to transit planning for Scarborough, one that includes completing the Transit Project Assessment Process for the subway and the LRT networks.

Let’s move forward. These plans will finally allow both the public and the private sectors to have assurance about how Scarborough will develop, thrive and contribute to a better, modern Toronto.

Kidd also spoke to U of T News reporter Romi Levine. She asked him how UTSC and its students are affected in particular:

How will transit expansion benefit the student population at UTSC?

It’ll be huge. It’ll significantly reduce travelling time to and from the campus, freeing up time for further study, engagement in student clubs, engagement in student co-curricular activities such as sports and culture, engagement in undergraduate research.

The leaders of the SCSU (Scarborough Campus Students’ Union) over and over again have stood with us shoulder to shoulder on transit.

In what ways can the campus grow with better transit?

There’s the vision of growth for our campus – we have a campus master plan that looks ahead over the next 20-30 years to build out the precinct of UTSC to fill in the campus between the traditional campus south of Ellesmere and the new buildings on the north of Ellesmere.

We see adding a cultural centre, residences, further academic buildings… we planned for the LRT within that master plan, but we’ve been very reluctant to go ahead with that building until the site for the LRT is finalized. So this will enable us to move ahead with that master plan.

Will better transit strengthen ties between UTSC and the Scarborough community?

There are physical transit barriers to easy accessibility. This is a car campus for the most part – we are on the east side of Highland Creek. There are impoverished priority areas on the west side of Highland Creek. For some of them, even though on a bike it would be 15 minutes, by public transportation it would be 45 minutes because you’d have to take three different rides. It’s horrible. This would make the campus and the cultural, athletic, intellectual resources here much more accessible to the eastern part of Scarborough on the other side of Highland Creek.

Will better transit links to UTSC create better connectivity between U of T campuses?

Oh come on, for sure! One of the barriers to bringing people out here, one of the barriers to moving students downtown is inadequate transportation. The SCSU lobbies every day and every week for strengthened transit links to downtown… so this will make that a lot easier, a lot more convenient. It will enable students on both St. George and UTSC to make better use of the richness of both campuses.

Read more about Principal Bruce Kidd’s perspective on transit for Scarborough in Intervals: the Principal’s blog.