Critical Design

Join the Toronto Founders Hub every other Saturday at 3:30pm for our regular meetup at 5 Elements Espresso Bar. Sit down with other entrepreneurs to network and discuss business ideas or strategies. \- Broaden your network \- Get critical feedback \- Socialize in low pressure setting I look forward to seeing you!

[Summary] This meetup is for those who are interested in code, web development, design, cloud, or AI. All levels are welcome, so feel free to bring your laptop and discuss what you are working on or what you are learning. You can share your projects and ideas with other participants freely. There are outlets and WiFi, drinks are about $5 for tea, they take card only. [Price] Attendance is FREE. But you need to buy something from the venue. [Policies] \- We do not tolerate harassment of our members \- We remind users that that this meetup is intended for networking and hobby development\, and any attempts at using this meetup event as a dating platform will not be not be tolerated Further information: https://torontostack.exchange/

### Each Crossroads & Connections workshop is a fast, friendly mash-up: short demos, paired practices and intentional reflection. We keep it light, embodied, and social—so wisdom lands in your muscles and your circle, not only your mind. There isn’t one technique that fixes everything, for everyone, in every situation. ### What is it? We pair complementary domains to spark shared flow, fresh insight, and unforgettable “aha!” moments. You leave with lived skills, not just notes. * **Dialogue** gets you out of solo spin: small-group formats expose blind spots and sharpen “shared reality,” so your next move matches *this* person and *this* moment. * **Imaginal** practice is guided “as if” rehearsal you look *through*, not *at*: walking the beats before the scene means your body recognizes turns when stakes rise. * **Mindfulness** steadies the camera: attention stops jerking around, drama gets de-amplified, and you can catch the instant you’re narrating motives and swap in one honest question. * **Embodiment** makes it actionable through direct, non-verbal experience and how your inner experience matches your outer expression. Facilitators: Varies Fee: $30USD - Or a 10-pack for $200USD [Please visit here](https://awakentomeaning.com/crossroads-and-connections/) for registration and more information.

This week we'll be visiting Sunnybrook Park, no guarantees that it'll be sunny though. Our group will leave at the posted time, so please arrive early. Please cancel your RSVP if you can't make it. How fast, how far? Assume 4.5 km/h for a distance of ~7.25km. The path is a mixture of paved and dirt trails so be prepared for anything. The route is a "there and back again", so we will finish where we originally start from. Bring water, a snack, and hiking footwear for a distance walk. We usually go out for coffee after our hike. This time we'll be going to Baretto's Caffe, located at 1262 Don Mills Road unit 106 Required reading for you and your guests before RSVP'ing to all events: 1. [Liability Waiver and Group Rules](https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR0LFNJVYn5j1AYl8eR63HjAxKMkRwg5ifKXqL3rP6Xl7v_Wcsx4xR_kNFluE3eILpSmP-EJ0OouQvT/pub) (updated 05/30/22) 2. When asked at RSVP time, indicate **\*Yes\*** if you agree to the question provided. 3. See general information about [Tick Safety](https://www.ontario.ca/page/lyme-disease)

\*\*NOTE: This meetup currently lacks a regular host. (The current hosts are volunteers for online organizational purposes; they show up in person occasionally.) If you arrive and there is no host, don’t worry. Whoever is the longest-running member (or whoever wants to) can set the timer for the writing session. In this way, the meetup is self-sustaining, and not dependent on any one person. Thanks for your understanding.\*\* Join us for an hour of quiet writing, followed by an hour of (optional) socializing. \*\*SILENT WRITING BEGINS AT 1:15 PM. IF YOU'RE LATE, WELCOME! WE WILL IGNORE YOU (BECAUSE WE'RE BUSY WRITING) UNTIL 2:15 PM.\*\* This meetup is open to everyone, whether you’re writing a novel, blog, class paper, or journal entry—or something completely different. Anyone interested is welcome to attend :) LOCATION: 5 Elements Cafe, basement level RSVP: Please be advised that seating is first-come, first-served, even if you have RSVP'd. Seats are not reserved and we can't control how many other people are in the cafe. We recommend coming down to the basement to grab a spot before you buy anything, just in case. SCHEDULE: 1:00 to 1:15 PM: Arrive and get settled in. 1:15 to 2:15 PM: Write in silence for an hour. \*\*If you arrive after 1:15, please silently find your own place to sit. We'll welcome you to join the group at 2:15.\*\* 2:15 PM: Introduce yourself. We'll go in a circle; just say your name and 1–2 sentences about what you're writing. (E.g., "I'm Rudolph and I'm writing a non-fiction book about reindeer.") 2:20 PM onwards: Chill/leave. Chat, hang out, keep writing if you want, leave whenever.

Bring your favorite board game or join in with the ones we have! ☕ Please support the café by purchasing coffee/snacks, as they’re kindly providing us the space. Let’s have a fun game night! 🎉

### An Invitation For You A 6.5 Hour, clinically designed reset for high-responsibility professionals — with guided practices, meaningful dialogue, and a full multi-course meal. For executives, clinicians, educators, managers, HR leaders, and high-responsibility professionals who carry visible and invisible load — and need more than another wellness webinar. ##### **Individual Ticket: $349 + tax** https://daretoretreat.co/product/leadershipreset2026/ #### What Happens During the 6.5 Hour Leadership Reset This is not a panel you sit through and forget the next day. The experience moves intentionally between learning, embodied reset, nourishment, and integration — so participants don’t leave emotionally spun out. **The experience includes:** * **Arrival and Grounding Welcome** A guided transition from workplace pace into psychological space. * **Opening Reflection** Structured time to slow down, settle, and reconnect with internal cues. * **The Mental Beauty Framework** A clear, professional approach to sustainable self-leadership rooted in clinical practice and real workplace realities. * **Guided Nervous-System Reset Practices** Breathwork, visualization, or sensory grounding designed to reduce overload and restore emotional steadiness. * **Insight Session: The Psychology of Burnout** Exploring patterns such as over-responsibility, perfectionism, emotional labour, compassion fatigue, and the pressure to “stay strong.” * **Applied Reset Practice** A practical ritual or tool participants can repeat in daily life and at work. * **Full Multi-Course Meal** A curated dining experience woven into the reset, reinforcing slowing down, receiving, and replenishing. * **Integration Circle and Closing** Reflection and anchoring so insights land — not just intellectually, but emotionally. #### What This Experience Is Workplace demands are rising, burnout is accelerating, and leaders across Canada are carrying more emotional, cognitive, and relational responsibility than ever before. Traditional wellness initiatives — short talks, apps, and one-off perks — are no longer enough. **Dare to ‘*Re-Treat*’: The Leadership Reset Experience** is a **clinically grounded, psychologically safe, in-person experience** designed to help high-responsibility professionals **pause, regulate, and recalibrate** — without checking out of real life or pretending one night fixes systemic pressure. This is not a traditional conference or wellness workshop. It is a **structured leadership reset** that blends evidence-informed teaching, guided nervous-system practices, shared reflection, and intentional nourishment. Participants don’t just feel better for a moment. They leave **more grounded, clearer, and steadier** — with tools they can actually use.

Join us for our in-person Saturday critique session! We'll be meeting in the basement of **The Blake House**, which is located near Wellesley and Jarvis, about a 10-minute walk from Wellesley Station or Sherbourne Station. **In respect to the Blake House for hosting us, we humbly request that attendees purchase a meal, dessert, or drink if you are able to do so.** Feel free to bring in a piece of writing up to **2000 words** for reading and critique. Please bring paper copies so that listeners can easily follow and make notes. Dedicated listeners are equally welcome. In larger groups, please be mindful of giving everyone a fair chance to speak. Our group values and meeting structure can be found here: [https://www.torontosffwriters.com/sff-writer-rules-and-guidelines](https://www.torontosffwriters.com/sff-writer-rules-and-guidelines) We ask that writers provide content warnings when necessary. To limit the spread of diseases, we kindly ask that you stay home if you're feeling sick. We will be here every week! **\*\*We support the hard work and effort that goes into writing fiction, and do not condone the use of AI to replace the creative process.\*\*** And, that's everything! See you there!

你有没有试过，让 AI 帮你解释 ETF、看一只股票、算退休，或者判断该不该提前还房贷？ 它说得很快。 也很像那么回事。 但理财最难的，常常不是看懂一个产品。 而是看清自己的约束：收入、家庭、税务、房贷、风险承受力，还有你晚上能不能睡得着。 这一场，我们继续用「AI 双面圆桌派」的方式，聊 AI + 理财。 我们会聊几个普通人真的会遇到的问题： * AI 能帮我们省下哪些查资料、做比较、读文件的时间？ * 为什么同样收入、同样资产的两个家庭，答案可能完全不同？ * AI 给出的投资观点，普通人可以怎么验证，而不是直接相信？ * 金融平台越来越智能之后，效率、推荐和用户保护之间怎么平衡？ * 当金融骗局从群发话术变成个性化关系，我们该如何提高警觉？ 这不是一场投资课。 也不会给个股推荐。 我们更想聊的是： AI 可以帮我们更快看懂信息，但它不能替我们承担后果。 ***嘉宾介绍*** **Melinda Hu, CFP** 加拿大 CFP 注册财务规划师，拥有 20 年中加税务与财富规划经验，专注小企业与家庭的税务及退休规划。她长期关注 AI 对财务规划行业的影响，也关注在技术快速变化的时代，人们如何重新理解财富、风险与安全感。 **Alex Luo** 资深 IT 软件架构师，15 年深耕云技术、AI 人工智能与科技金融行业。金融创业 5 年，致力于中产阶级财商教育和理财服务，关注 AI 在金融行业的应用和发展。 ***About Startup4Chinese*** Started in August 2017, Startup4Chinese's mission is to INSPIRE, EMPOWER, and CONNECT entrepreneurial minds not only among Chinese but beyond. We want to inspire your passionate entrepreneurship spirit, empower your brilliant startup idea, and connect you with your future reliable partner. We value Openness. We provide Pragmatic topics. We want to help you succeed! ***关于OneHub*** OneHub商业咨询是一家领先的加拿大咨询公司，提供商业咨询和顾问服务，帮助中小企业增长和成功。该公司以其战略咨询方面的专业知识而闻名，包括商业计划、市场研究、财务建模和数字化转型。创始人Eddie Lee有30多年企业实务经验，他注意到创业者常常面临相同的问题。OneHub团队，就是要为为初创企业或中小型企业遇到的问题提供全面解决方案。 ***About OneHub*** OneHub Business Consulting is a leading Canadian consulting company that provides business consulting and advisory services to help small and medium-sized enterprises grow and succeed. The company is known for its expertise in strategic consulting, including business planning, market research, financial modeling, and digital transformation. Founder Eddie Lee has over 30 years of practical experience in the corporate world and noticed that entrepreneurs often face similar problems. The OneHub team aims to provide comprehensive solutions for the issues encountered by startups or small to medium-sized businesses.

Bring any piece of music in any form. We'll deconstruct it's musical elements and share with each other what the music evokes and what insights arise. Then, consider how this musical work fits into the broader world of music and sound. After a break well do a musical exercise together and end with a short slent meditation. Advance registration with pay pal $20. Please call Gary to confirm your registration. 647 292 5415 Generosity policy: limited spots available for no or low charge fir those who need it.

**The Behavior Gap: Where Products Win or Lose** Teams today have more data than ever, and yet many still struggle to understand why customers adopt, engage with, or abandon their products. Teams sprint, ship faster, and chase more signals… all while metrics stall and confidence drops. The missing piece isn’t more data. It’s often the behavioral insight between the metrics, explaining why the numbers move in the first place. Dashboards can tell you what customers did, but understanding why they did it (and how to influence what they do next) requires a deeper blend of insights. This session is about closing that gap. Drawing from real-world experience designing and scaling products as [ZoCo Design](https://zocodesign.com/)’s CEO, [Lacey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceypicazo/) will share how to cut through the noise and identify the insights that actually change behavior—moving people, and moving metrics. You’ll learn: * Why understanding customer behavior is a quant and qual challenge * How to spot the signals that actually predict behavior change * Where AI accelerates insight, and where it creates distraction * How to get meaningfully closer to customers, without adding more tools This talk reframes how to evaluate performance and identify what levers actually improve it, helping your team to make smarter bets with greater confidence. Every meaningful outcome is driven by behavior change. And when you know how to design for behavior, you stop guessing, and start building things that work. **About Our Speaker** [Lacey Picazo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceypicazo/) is the Founder and CEO of ZoCo, a healthcare product studio that turns complex, high-stakes ideas into products that drive real-world adoption. She partners with healthcare organizations to uncover critical care delivery insights, focus product strategy through behavior design, and build solutions that patients and providers actually use. Thanks to our 2026 sponsors: [Clarivoy](https://www.clarivoy.com), [What Box Consulting Group](https://www.whatboxconsultinggroup.com), [Conductrics](https://www.conductrics.com), and [Piwik PRO](https://piwik.pro) More info at [cbusdaw.com](https://cbusdaw.com)

**TBA**

QA or the Highway is a one-day, affordable, regional, professional conference featuring real-world experience and thought leadership in the QA and testing industry. This is a ticketed event please register here: https://www.qaorthehwy.com/ Featured Keynote Speakers: **Matthew-Hope Eland** **(Wizard at Leading EDJE)** \- An AI Specialist and Wizard at Leading EDJE who is known to teach software engineering\, AI\, and data science concepts in the most ridiculous ways possible\. Matt has used machine learning to settle debates over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie\, reinforcement learning to drive the behavior of digital squirrels\, data analytics to suggest improvements to his favorite TV show\, and AI agents to play board games and create an AI agent with the personality of a dog\. Matt is the author of "Data Science in \.NET with Polyglot Notebooks" and "Refactoring with C\#" as well as several LinkedIn Learning courses\. Matt helps organize the Central Ohio \.NET Developer Group\, runs several blogs and a YouTube channel\, has a Master’s of Science in Data Analytics\, and is a current Microsoft MVP in AI and \.NET\. **Tatyana Arbouzova** **(CEO at Innovate QA)** \- Tatyana Arbouzova is an engineering and business leader with a strong background in Quality Engineering across multiple industries\, including Big Tech\, Healthcare\, and Entertainment\. She has held leadership roles at world\-class companies such as Microsoft\, VMware\, Disney\, and The Pokémon Company International\, where she focused on building quality\-driven cultures and scaling teams to deliver high\-impact products\. With decades of experience\, Tatyana has helped organizations transform their quality practices so teams can deliver software efficiently\, confidently\, and with measurable business outcomes\. Today\, Tatyana advises software companies on adopting AI to optimize quality practices and improve how software is delivered at scale\. She is also a passionate community builder and the founder of Innovate QA\, a thriving Seattle\-based community and conference for quality professionals\.

**TBA**

Topic to be announced. **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

We meet to learn and practice American Sign Language and to grow our familiarity with Deaf culture. Facilitated by hearing folks (with a connection to a professional interpreter) using Deaf-created content. People of all ASL skill levels are welcome! As we learn, we hope to connect more with the Deaf community in Central Ohio. Join us as you're able! Come regularly or just once - whatever you're looking for! Each meetup will explore different topics related to ASL/Deaf culture, and will feature time to practice conversation with one another. Just bring yourself and a willingness to learn!

Want to be a speaker? submit your talk to our Call for Presenters!!! https://sessionize.com/azure-cbus-2026/