We were up early. We had to be at the university, ready to start the meeting for 9:30. We ate and packed and then headed over. It was VERY COLD outside.
Then we were at a Laurentian building that has Ministry offices, business offices and some conference space. Talk about blending of fields! We carted all our stuff up and set up again.
On day three (read here about day two) we spoke more broadly about how the different pieces worked together.
In December 2012, members of our team went to Sudbury to work with a group of people interested in how Northern Ontario might be affected by a transportation spine to the Ring of Fire.
The prototypes we were able to develop during the 3-day intensive allowed us to test models that have a high-degree of interactivity, whereby users can easily change variables and see how the changes might play out.
Steve Williams discusses the Northern Ontario Mining Impact model he developed, in consultation with economist David Robinson.
This model shows the population, local economic impact and social impacts of proposed mines in Northern Ontario. You can change variables such as the density of mines (i.e., number of mines per 100km2) and number of employees per mine. The model shows that under reasonable assumptions of mine density, the population increase in the region will be dramatic. The model allows for the impact of worker families and support workers on the total population increase. You can also model the economic impacts by making assumptions on the proportion of salaries that are spent locally along with the proportion of local outsourcing by the mine sites themselves.
In December 2012, members of our team went to Sudbury to work with a group of people interested in how Northern Ontario might be affected by a transportation spine to the Ring of Fire.
The prototypes we were able to develop during the 3-day intensive allowed us to test models that have a high-degree of interactivity, whereby users can easily change variables and see how the changes might play out.
Steve Williams narrates this introduction to the Northern Ontario Demographic and Income Trend Model he developed for the simulation project, in consultation with economist David Robinson.
David Robinson: Here we model the case if things proceed as they have previously in Canada. The federal government and provincial governments are all trying to avoid this simple case. It’s relatively simple to extend this model to account for some more sophisticated policies intended to let local first-nations people use these developments.
Social Innovation Simulation 