Information Architecture

( SOLD-OUT ) ## Overview \*\*\*Four of today's most acclaimed writers visit the Salon to explore the nature of ***imagination***. **Join four of today's premiere literary artists as they explore the role of the imagination in contemporary literature.** ***FREE Eventbrite ticket link is below***. Check your calendars. Can you attend? You will need an entry ticket--follow through please. The novels of Patricia Lockwood, Elif Batuman, Sheila Heti and Gwendoline Riley each take a different approach to the relationship between imaginative and real-life elements. Some have been classified as autofiction, while others are products of so-called "pure imagination". What does all this mean? Imagination. **So when does a piece of writing become fiction? What is proper admixture of observation and imagination? What is the imagination, anyway?** **NOTE: In this once-in-a-lifetime gathering of talent, Lockwood, Batuman, Heti, and Riley discuss some of the fundamental questions of art-making, and expose the innermost nature of their creative processes.** **ABOUT THE GUESTS:** **Patricia Lockwood** is the bestselling author of *No One Is Talking About This*, a novel which was a finalist for the Booker Prize, and a memoir, *Priestdaddy*, which won the Thurber Prize and was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2017 by *The New York Times Book Review*. She is a contributing editor at the *London Review of Books*, and her essays and reviews appear regularly in *The New Yorker* and *The New York Times*. **Elif Batuman**'s first novel, *The Idiot*, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and for the Women's Prize. The sequel, *Either/Or*, was published in 2022. She is also the author of *The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them.* She has been a staff writer at *The New Yorker* since 2010, and holds a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford. **Sheila Heti** is the author of eleven books, most recently *Alphabetical Diaries*, a novel which was named a Best Book of the Year by *The New Yorker* and a *New York Times* Critic Top Book of the Year. Her novels include *Pure Colour, Motherhood,* and *How Should a Person Be?,* and her books have been translated into twenty-four languages **Gwendoline Riley** is the author of *My Phantoms*, which was shortlisted for the Folio Prize; *First Love*, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; and *Cold Water*, which won the Betty Trask Award. In 2018, the *Times Literary Supplement* named her one of the twenty best British and Irish novelists working today. Her forthcoming novel, *The Palm House*, will be published in April 2026. **FREE ticket link--for ENTRY--** https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/what-is-imagination-lockwood-batuman-heti-and-riley-tickets-1974936293618?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

This month, we’re switching things up. Instead of hosting our usual SD Drinks meetup, we’re inviting the group to **attend another event together**: **Strategic Foresight for Driving Organizational Transformation**, hosted by Rotman BDI. Strategic foresight i.e. our ability to anticipate and plan for change already comes up often in our SD conversations. This event explores those ideas in practice, with a case study led by the **Centre for Social Innovation**, adding a layer we deeply care about as designers: meaningful impact and tackling complex, wicked problems. It’s a topic that feels highly relevant to service design, strategy, and systems thinking, and one we know will resonate with the group. 📅 **Date & time:** February 10, 5:30 pm 📍 **Location:** Rotman School of Management, Room 1065 105 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3E6 🎟 **Tickets:** Please register directly via the host’s Eventbrite page [ https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/strategic-foresight-for-driving-organizational-transformation-tickets-1981007188829](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/strategic-foresight-for-driving-organizational-transformation-tickets-1981007188829) **Why join as a group?** This is a great opportunity to: * explore a topic deeply relevant to design, strategy, and systems thinking * be inspired by practical foresight frameworks and perspectives * connect with others, thinking about long-term impact and change **How we’re doing this:** Some of us have already registered and plan to attend together. After the event, we’ll grab a drink nearby to continue the conversation — optional, casual, and very SD Drinks 🍻 If you’d like to coordinate or chat ahead of time, the conversation is happening in our Discord event chat: [https://discord.gg/Qc434j5T](https://discord.gg/Qc434j5T) Hope you can join us, see you there!

\*\*\*PLEASE READ\*\*\* This listing is for information purposes only. To reserve a spot, sign up here: https://www.woodforsheep.ca/pages/event-scheduling What is DDAL? The D&D Adventurers League is an ongoing official organized play campaign for Dungeons & Dragons. It uses the fifth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, and features the Forgotten Realms setting. You can play D&D Adventurers League games at any place that features adventures bearing the D&D Adventurers League logo. You can create a character and bring that character to games anywhere D&D Adventurers League is supported. More details: https://dnd.wizards.com/playevents/players Sitting fees apply.

Please Note: This event is advertised on multiple platforms. Please RSVP and get a ticket on Mindstone (https://community.mindstone.com/events/mindstone-toronto-january-ai-meetup-20251118) to view the agenda and guarantee a spot. Welcome to the most electrifying and ground-breaking AI Meetup in Toronto! Join us once a month as we delve into the world of artificial intelligence, explore its cutting-edge practical applications, and marvel at the astonishing projects that are shaping our future. Why should you attend? • Get up close and personal with the AI projects that are redefining the boundaries of technology and human potential. • Learn from the brightest minds in the field and gain valuable insights into the ever-evolving AI landscape. • Unleash your curiosity, fuel your creativity, and expand your network as you connect with fellow AI aficionados and pioneers. What you can expect? Mindstone events consist of three talks covering different aspects: • What I Learned Building With LLMs: A technical demo breaking down the process for building a product using AI with real-life learnings and insights. • How To Be More Productive Using AI: A practical demo and step-by-step guide on how to use AI to speed up and improve tasks. • What Does The Future Look Like With AI?: A theoretical talk on the impact of AI on work, life and society. After the talks we'll have pizza, drinks, and networking. Don't miss out on this extraordinary opportunity to witness the AI revolution in action. It's time to embark on a thrilling journey into the future and discover the endless possibilities that lie within the realm of artificial intelligence. Reserve your spot today for the ultimate AI experience! 💡✨ (https://community.mindstone.com/events/mindstone-toronto-january-ai-meetup-20251118) Please Note: This event is advertised on multiple platforms. Please RSVP and get a ticket on Mindstone (https://community.mindstone.com/events/mindstone-toronto-january-ai-meetup-20251118) to view the agenda and guarantee a spot.

Presentation of the first data visualisation published by the Clay-Gilmore Institute for Philosophy, Technology, and Counterinsurgency The works assembled in this talk emerge from the CG-IPTC's inquiry into the algorithmic management of racialized life — a condition in which the logic of counterinsurgency has migrated from the battlefield to the domestic sphere. Through predictive analytics, biometric surveillance, and spatial policing technologies, contemporary security practices now enact strategies once reserved for the governance of colonized populations. Our central concern is not simply that artificial intelligence and predictive policing reproduce racial bias, but that they embody the very strategic grammar of militarized population control. Miron J. Clay-Gilmore https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/directory/miron-j-clay-gilmore/ Postdoctoral Research Fellow Department of Philosophy University of Toronto About the Speaker: Miron J. Clay-Gilmore is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Ethics and the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto. Dr. Clay-Gilmore’s research explores how artificial intelligence, big data, and predictive policing operate within broader regimes of counterinsurgency and state violence. By situating contemporary AI systems within longer genealogies of Western militarism and colonial administration, his scholarship reveals how the management of life and death—what he terms the technologization of counterinsurgency—defines the moral and political boundaries of modern societies. His publications have appeared in *AI and Ethics, Res Philosophica, American Philosophical Quarterly,* and *The Journal of African American Studies.* Across these works, Dr. Clay-Gilmore bridges Africana philosophy, social and political thought, and the philosophy of technology to illuminate how power, race, and computation shape the contemporary human condition. Through the CG-IPTC, Dr. Clay-Gilmore leads a pioneering interdisciplinary initiative that integrates philosophical inquiry, data analysis, and public education to interrogate the ethical and political consequences of emerging technologies. The Institute develops research clusters, public-facing media, and digital infrastructures that expose the interconnections between technological innovation, governance, and racialized violence. **\* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \*** This is a talk with audience Q&A presented by the University of Toronto's Centre for Ethics that is free to attend and open to the public. The talk will also be streamed online with live chat [here](https://youtube.com/live/s2okrHEoiZ0?feature=share). About the Centre for Ethics (http://ethics.utoronto.ca): The Centre for Ethics is an interdisciplinary centre aimed at advancing research and teaching in the field of ethics, broadly defined. The Centre seeks to bring together the theoretical and practical knowledge of diverse scholars, students, public servants and social leaders in order to increase understanding of the ethical dimensions of individual, social, and political life. In pursuit of its interdisciplinary mission, the Centre fosters lines of inquiry such as (1) foundations of ethics, which encompasses the history of ethics and core concepts in the philosophical study of ethics; (2) ethics in action, which relates theory to practice in key domains of social life, including bioethics, business ethics, and ethics in the public sphere; and (3) ethics in translation, which draws upon the rich multiculturalism of the City of Toronto and addresses the ethics of multicultural societies, ethical discourse across religious and cultural boundaries, and the ethics of international society. The Ethics of A.I. Lab at the Centre For Ethics recently appeared on a list of 10 organizations leading the way in ethical A.I.: https://ocean.sagepub.com/blog/10-organizations-leading-the-way-in-ethical-ai

For the event details and registration use the user group event link: [TFPUG Feb 2026 Event - Fabric Real Time Intelligen... - Microsoft Fabric Community](https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Toronto-Fabric-Power-BI-User/TFPUG-Feb-2026-Event-Fabric-Real-Time-Intelligence/ev-p/4948482) The RSVP here is not considered a registration and it's just to announce the event to the meetup community. TFPUG Team [Toronto Fabric & Power BI User Group | Microsoft Fabric Community](https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Toronto-Fabric-User-Group/gh-p/TorontoFabricUserGroup) [Toronto Fabric & Power BI User Group | Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/toronto-fabric-user-group/) [Toronto Fabric & Power BI User Group | LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/toronto-fabric-user-group/)

Stop Babysitting LLMs, Start Shipping. PRs got bigger, not better. Seniors are burning hours on AI bug hunts while *throughput stays flat*. Encode your existing **SDLC** into a gated multi-agent flow so LLMs do the noisy work. Review changes that have already passed **CI**. ## **Swarm Architecture** Encodes a full SDLC loop (**issue** → **spec → plan → PR** → **gate** → **deploy**) in a gated **45-agent swarm** you can explore after the talk. ## **Shift Left** **Mutation-on-diff** and **contract/schema checks** wired into your agentic flow before review. Reduce **review pain** instead of just generating more code. ## **Failure Modes & Guardrails** Hallucinations, reward hacking, process confabulation, and how your architecture catches and fixes them before they reach reviewers. ## **Takeaways** * ✓You'll leave with a working **demo swarm repository** you can clone into your own repos, and a clearer way to decide when to lean on **tokens versus human review**. * ✓For platform and DevEx engineers, tech leads and staff+ developers, and engineering leaders who are tired of wrestling with AI-generated code and **review pain**. * ✓The talk and swarm will be released under **Apache 2.0**. *Come at 5:30 pm have some pizza and chat for a bit. The presentation starts at 6:00 pm.*

[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/

We are kicking off **2026** with a relaxed, in person **a11yTO** social focused on connection, reflection, and conversation. This is a casual evening with no formal presentation and no slides. The goal is simply to bring the community together, reconnect with familiar faces, meet new people, and share experiences from the past year. As part of the evening, we will offer optional mini lightning prompts for anyone who would like to participate. These are short, three minute reflections focused on looking back at 2025. You might share one accessibility win from last year that truly made a difference, or one thing that did not work and what it taught you. Listening is just as welcome as sharing, and there is no need to prepare anything in advance. Whether you are new to accessibility or have been working in the space for years, everyone is welcome. Register at: [https://tickets.a11yto.com/e/33/a11yto-february-social-reflecting-on-our-accessibility-journey-in-2025](https://tickets.a11yto.com/e/33/a11yto-february-social-reflecting-on-our-accessibility-journey-in-2025)

**Important note about the retirement of the OWASP Meetup platform** Fellow OWASP Toronto members, We are making an important announcement regarding an upcoming transition. The OWASP Foundation has announced that they will be retiring their Meetup Pro subscription effective January 31, 2026: https://owasp.org/blog/2026/01/13/retiring-meetup.html This means that our OWASP Toronto Meetup group may be removed in the coming days. We understand this may be short notice, so we want to make this announcement before we lose access. You are an important part of our chapter community. Many attendees I have spoken to have discovered OWASP Toronto via Meetup. To continue engaging with the community while using a platform that enables discoverability, we will moving to the [Evenbrite](https://owasp-toronto-chapter.eventbrite.com/) for publishing our events. You can continue to follow us via our [Google Group mailing list](https://groups.google.com/a/owasp.org/g/toronto-chapter), our [Chapter page](https://owasp.org/www-chapter-toronto/), our [LinkedIn group](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/owasp-toronto-chapter/), our [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqmBl-u_4cOEiH3OXWE3sPg), our Slack channel ([#owasp-toronto-chapter](https://owasp.slack.com/archives/C075DRCB1PZ), does not require an OWASP membership), as well as on our new [Discord channel](https://discord.gg/eg3upJ6N). Please see below for details of our February 12 event. Visit our [Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/owasp-toronto-february-2026-tickets-1982057078076) page for more information! \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* **Dual Talk Event: Raising Cyber Awareness Through Electronic Word of Mouth \| When AI Becomes Application Logic: Securing Shadow AI** Presentation #1: Raising Cybersecurity Awareness Through Electronic Word of Mouth: A Data-Driven Assessment Awareness of the many cybersecurity threats, vulnerabilities, and solutions to mitigate these threats/vulnerabilities is instrumental in improving basic cybersecurity behaviours. A healthy body of knowledge has been devoted to exploring how to better increase awareness, in any given topic, among members of the general public which have explored the role of word of mouth (WOM) and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in spreading awareness. In recent years, the rise of social media platforms as an alternative communication channel has created efforts to promote cybersecurity awareness online regarding the numerous cybersecurity threats. However, little research attention has been devoted to exploring eWOM communication on social media surrounding cybersecurity awareness. Moreover, no research to date has considered the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these eWOM discussions related to cybersecurity awareness. To address these literature gaps, this research collected 227, 270 relevant tweets surrounding cybersecurity awareness from 2018 to 2022 conducting an exploratory analysis of the corpus using social network analyses, topic modelling and semantic similarity analysis. The results found topics rose in prominence and then dissipated as newer topics emerged while information was found to spread incredibly far despite a high degree of community forming, suggesting the online discourse is very open and evolving over time. These findings illustrate the potential of social media as an effective tool for raising cybersecurity awareness. The impact of COVID-19 observed an increase in the reach of information in addition to new specific topics emerging in the discourse, but the effects appear to be temporary. Speaker: Dane Vanderkooi Dane Vanderkooi is a fifth-year Doctoral Candidate in management science at TorontoMet University who specializes in researching cybersecurity and digital privacy behaviours. He completed his bachelor's of commerce at Uottawa and holds a master's in management science degree from Ryerson University. Dane has published his research in academic journals, conferences and industry reports. Dane has also presented his research at various conferences including HC2P, SERENE-RISC, HCII, CyberToronto, ASAC and SocialMedia+Society, AMCIS, and ICIS. Dane is certified in cybersecurity (CC) from ISC2 and has practical experience working in the field of cybersecurity with private industry, non-for-profits, and the public sector including the Canadian Armed Forces, Public Health and Safety Canada, Justice Canada, Innovation Science and Economic Development (ISED), Bell, BMO, Desjardins, Ritchie Bros and Achev. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Presentation #2: When AI Becomes Application Logic: Securing Shadow AI AI is entering production faster than security teams can see it. From “simple” chatbot integrations to LLMs wired directly into business logic — and agents running entire application flows — organizations are accumulating Shadow AI: untracked, ungoverned, and often dangerously over-privileged. This talk shows how AI quietly changes application behavior at runtime: expanding trust boundaries, introducing non-deterministic authorization paths, and creating blast radiuses that static inventories and policy checklists cannot capture. Using real-world architectural patterns and runtime signals, we’ll demonstrate how security teams can identify where AI is actually used, what it can access, and how attackers abuse AI-driven logic to exploit new classes of vulnerabilities. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for securing AI-powered applications — grounded in runtime behavior and evidence, not assumptions. Speaker: Daniel Shechter Daniel Shechter is the CEO and Co-Founder of Miggo, an Application Detection and Response platform. Shechter has an impressive background in both threat intelligence and within the security industry. Before founding Miggo he was leading cyber security teams in Israel's elite cyber intelligence division, Unit 8200. He later joined McKinsey, a strategy and management consulting company, where he provided guidance on acquisition, developing new business strategies and more. Shechter is an industry expert in security, incident detection and response, threat intelligence, and attack observability.

\*\***The Toronto History Walks Explorer Pass is available. Get it now for $125.00 for 1 year of unlimited tours, email** **torontohistorywalks@gmail.com** **for more information or for signing up!\*\*** \*\* **Please note: Please e-transfer the ticket amount when booking your space for this tour! You can e-transfer to the following email at:** **torontohistorywalks@gmail.com** Danforth Road was named for Asa Danforth, who built segments of Queen Street and Kingston Road. Work commenced in 1799 on Danforth's Road a hundred-mile route from Scarborough to the Trent River, and completed in 1801, but soon was replaced by the 1817 Kingston Road stagecoach route. Most early maps of Toronto referred to Danforth as a Concession Line Road. Originally Danforth Avenue connected Toronto to Danforth Road. It was built by the Don and Danforth Road Company in 1851 to Broadview Avenue, and Kingston Road. Danforth is home to Toronto's Greek community, known as Greektown or as it was once known - Little Athens. The walking tour begins outside Broadview Subway Station Parkette 769 Broadview Ave across from the subway station on the east side of Broadview Avenue. We end at the Pape Subway Station! Hope to see your there! This tour has a ticket price of $15.00 per person! \*\* **Please note: Please e-transfer the ticket amount when booking your space for this tour! You can e-transfer to the following email at:** **torontohistorywalks@gmail.com**

Join us for learning and networking on Feb 12, 2026 with Toronto Women's Data Group, in downtown Toronto! Hear from two leading data professionals, who will share their insights on the Data/ML field, hard-earned lessons, and what the day-to-day really looks like. Whether you’re looking to learn, considering a pivot or advancing your career, this event is for you! Speakers: \- Jessica David \- Principal Data Engineer\, Elastic \- Ella Chen \- Software Engineer\, Shopify Schedule (subject to change): 6:00 pm - Doors open 6:30 pm - Speaker sessions, Q&A 8:00 pm - Networking/chatting Shoutout to our sponsors: Index Exchange - https://www.indexexchange.com/ Elastic - https://www.elastic.co/ Allies are welcome to attend, with the understanding that these events are focused on spotlighting the career experiences of women.

### Tools in your AI's Toolbox : An introduction to MCP Servers The generative AI revolution has unlocked unprecedented capabilities, but the next frontier is agency: empowering models to interact with, query, and act upon the world. The current challenge is the “N x M integration problem,” where every AI model requires a custom, brittle integration for each external tool or data source. This approach simply doesn’t scale. How can we give an AI access to our sales leads, code repositories, or IoT devices in a standardized, secure, and reusable way? This session introduces Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), the open-source framework designed to solve this challenge and become the universal connector—the USB-C port—for AI. MCP standardizes how AI models discover and use external tools, moving beyond simple function-calling to a robust, client-server architecture. We will dive into how this open protocol is creating a new ecosystem for building powerful, context-aware AI agents. Join this session for a developer-focused introduction where you will learn how to: Understand the core concepts of the open-source Model Context Protocol and its architecture. Utilize pre-built, open-source MCP servers to instantly connect AI to tools like Git, Slack, and databases. Build a custom MCP server to securely expose your own proprietary data and APIs as tools for any compliant AI. Move beyond bespoke integrations and contribute to a standardized, collaborative, and open ecosystem. Stop building one-off connectors and start building intelligent agents. This session will give you the practical knowledge to leverage MCP and create the next generation of AI that doesn’t just talk, but does. Want to be a speaker? submit your talk to our Call for Presenters!!! [https://sessionize.com/azure-cbus-2026/](https://sessionize.com/azure-cbus-2026/)

I love my job and one of the main things I do is help customers get going with any of the data technologies at Microsoft. Right now there are a lot of my customers asking about Microsoft Fabric. It's hard to weave across all the shiny new options across the Fabric landscape, let alone figure out where it fits into your organization. In this session we'll focus on answering one question - how can I get data into Fabric? We'll talk through the "it depends" options and see some of the options in live demos.

Christians in Tech is a community at the intersection of faith and technology. Our meetups are designed to spark meaningful conversations, promote knowledge sharing, and encourage growth—both in your career and your spiritual walk with God. Whether you're an experienced professional or just starting your tech journey, CIT welcomes you. Our Website [https://linktr.ee/citcbus](https://linktr.ee/citcbus) Sponsors and Partners * Improving (Venue Sponsor) * Bethel World Prayer Center (Fiscal Sponsor) * Fruits & Roots (Coffee Partner)

**Important time note:** Please plan on arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 as the elevators lock after 6 and you'll need to message us and we'll need to come get you. The building address is 4450 Bridge Park The entrance is 6620 Mooney St, Suite 400 **Abstract** TBD **YouTube Link** TBA

Columbus Code & Coffee is an inclusive, informal co-working session. People of all skill levels attend, and we love it that way. Many people (optionally) bring projects to work on, and many other people (optionally) socialize the entire time. It's entirely up to you! **What to Expect at the Intro Circle** \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ Near the beginning of the event (1:30 pm), we do a standup: * Organizer announcements, updates, and logistics Round 1 - (7 secs max): * Your name * What you're working on * What you can help others with Round 2: * Community events you wanna plug. If none, that's cool too. Round 3: * Job opportunities you're hiring for OR announce that you are looking for one. If none, that's cool. After the introduction circle, everything is self-organized! Feel free to work alone, pair up, attend one of our workshops/presentations, or mingle!

Our monthly PHP meetup. A virtual shindig courtesy of Zoom. Check back here for the details around 6:15 pm

Bring your Raspberry Pi, Arduino, microcontroller, or any other electronic project and join fellow electronics makers for a night of creativity and collaboration! This session is open forum to share your current projects—whether complete or in progress, it’s all interesting! Whether you’re deep into embedded systems, exploring new ideas, or just getting started, you’ll find a welcoming space to collaborate, share, and get inspired. This session will be at the Karl Road Library in Conference Room 1