York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School will be the venue this month for an important two-day event – the Creating Opportunities Summit 2017 – that will explore local, regional and national economic development issues in Canada and how to remove barriers to inclusion.
The Creating Opportunities Summit, which will run Thursday, Jan. 26 and Friday, Jan. 27 in the law school’s Helliwell Centre for Dispute Resolution (Room 1014), will address a range of economic development issues including transportation and transit, housing, youth employment, social procurement, community benefit agreements, entrepreneurship, pro bono business law, financial literacy, business improvement areas, technological innovations and government regulation.
The summit is sponsored by Osgoode Hall Law School, the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, York University’s Canada @150 Fund, Uber, Duke Heights BIA, and the Citizen Empowerment Project. Co-organizers of the Summit are Jamil Jivani, a visiting professor at Osgoode and founder of the Citizen Empowerment Project, and Michael Thorburn, a third-year Osgoode JD student and managing editor of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal.
“Our focus will be on strategies, initiatives and policies that can create opportunities for economic prosperity and remove barriers to inclusion for disadvantaged and underserved communities, particularly youth seeking educational and employment opportunities,” said Jivani.
The summit will feature four keynote speakers: J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis; City of Toronto Councillor Michael Thompson; Gillian Smith, chief marketing officer of the Toronto Board of Trade; and Bindu Cudjoe, deputy general counsel and chief administrative officer of BMO.
The summit will also welcome more than 25 thought leaders for seven panels and breakout discussions on the following topics: Lack of Opportunities; Starting a Business/Financial Literacy; Localized Economic Development: Theory and Practice; Transportation and Transit; Pro Bono Business Law; Youth Employment; and Technological Innovation and Regulation.
For more details and the complete agenda, visit the Creating Opportunities Summit website.