People
Staff
Gabe Sawhney
Executive Director
Gabe Sawhney is an experience designer, creative technologist and innovation strategist. He uses design and technology to address creative, civic and business challenges. He’s a pioneer in the Canadian civic tech community, helping co-found Civic Tech Toronto and launch Code for Canada.
Lia Milito
Managing Director
Lia is an urban planner with an interdisciplinary background that includes education, public policy, and community building. She is a former chair of the Civic Tech Toronto steering committee, and helped to launch Code for Canada.
Dorothy Eng
Director of Partnerships
Dorothy helps organizations and institutions use science and technology to solve problems. She is passionate about lending not only her voice, but her hands, to develop tech-based solutions that create meaningful change in our communities.
Luke Simcoe
Communications Lead
A journalist turned civic tech advocate, Luke is passionate about the potential for technology to improve government services and engagement. Prior to joining Code for Canada, he was the Managing Editor of Urban Affairs for Metro News.
Kelly Halseth
Education & Community Program Manager
Kelly has an array of experience in the non-profit and public sector as a community organizer and capacity builder. She has led and supported initiatives throughout the U.S. and Canada utilizing human-centered design and collective impact approaches to tackle complex social issues.
Shea Sinnott
Civic Hall Toronto Program Manager
Shea is an experienced project manager and organizer with a background in social and environmental justice. She holds an MEd in Education and Community Development, and is passionate about bringing people and organizations together, across sectors and issues, to work for a better world for all of us.
Samira Matan
Fellowship Program Coordinator
Samira is an experienced program manager and facilitator, and holds a BHSc in Anthropology and Health Sciences. She previously worked as a Regional Director for a ethical travel organization in Tanzania, and is excited to merge her passion for social justice with the potential of new technologies.
Marisa Bernstein
GRIT Toronto Program Manager
Marisa has a background in urban design and community engagement, which has helped her incorporate values of inclusion and accessibility into her work in the civic tech sector. Prior to joining Code for Canada, she co-founded a civic tech company that created digital tools to help communities to become better engaged in the urban improvement process.
Meha Shah
Fellowship Program Lead
Meha has eight years of experience working on fellowship programs in the education and nonprofit space. Prior to joining Code for Canadna, she worked at Teach for Pakistan as well as TNTP, where she collaborated with the New York City Department of Education on their Teaching Fellows program.
Merlin Chatwin
Monitoring & Evaluation Lead
Merlin is a PhD Candidate with an interdisciplinary background in political science, geography, education, and community organizing. His professional and academic pursuits focus on supporting inclusive civic participation and using evaluation to maximize social and strategic impact.
Sagar Jha
Partnerships Development Lead
Sagar has fostered meaningful partnerships and delivered high-impact projects across an array of industries including aerospace, cannabis, medical technology, clean tech and education. Prior to joining Code for Canada, he worked with the defense sector and Veterans Affairs to help people reclaim their mobility through bionics.
Jason Farra
Program Coordinator
Jason is a MSc Planning Candidate, with a background in design, stakeholder engagement, and communications event coordination. Prior to joining Code for Canada, he worked in the public sector supporting sustainability programs at the regional scale.
Board of Directors
Charles Finley
Chair
Charles has led transformational digital change for Thomson Reuters, the MaRS Discovery District and for clients while at Critical Mass and Bensimon Byrne. He is currently Global Director of Marketing and Communications with IBI Group and a member of the steering committee for Jane’s Walk.
Elina Lawrie
Director
Elina is a service designer working to humanize customer and employee experiences across a variety of industries. She is currently at Fjord and was previously at Bridgeable and the University Health Network, where she designed and implemented immersive solutions for healthcare.
Ren Bucholz
Director
Ren is a commercial litigator specializing in intellectual property, defamation and new technologies. He previously served as a Google Policy Fellow and the Assistant Director of International Policy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Cindy Tan
Director
Cindy Tan has worked in the non-profit and public sectors in areas such as community engagement, economic development, youth employment, diversity and inclusion, poverty reduction, and city-building.
Mike Jarrell
Director
Mike is the VP Business Development at Circuit Stream. He is passionate about empowering people from all backgrounds to learn and engage with technology and is excited about a Canadian future where everyone has the opportunity to learn how to code.
Ria Lupton
Director
Ria is a community builder with a passion for creating inclusive spaces. She’s helped launch and grow several communities, including Women Who Code Toronto. Her work is focused on using technology for good and solving for positive social change.
Hilda Tang
Director
Hilda is a management consultant and has advised top global organizations on a range of topics from digital transformation to product and service design. She’s excited to help Code for Canada expand and create broader impact for citizens nationally.
2018 Code for Canada Fellows
Caley Brock
2018 Fellow, Public Service Commission of Canada
Caley comes from Code.org where she built open source software tools to increase access to computer science education worldwide. She is an active participant in communities that work to make the software field more inclusive and diverse.
Joey Hua
2018 Fellow, Public Service Commission of Canada
Joey is a “sales-guru turned designer” with a background in patient and client care. Through her design practice, she has crafted product solutions for small businesses, start-ups, and non-profit organizations.
Siobhan Özege
2018 Fellow, Public Service Commission of Canada
Siobhan has delivered digital products for companies and non-profits across Canada’s broadcasting, music, and technology sectors. With a background in communications, she brings an interdisciplinary lens to her work in product management.
Evan Savage
2018 Fellow, City of Toronto
Evan has worked with Fortune 500 companies, research labs, startups, and non-profits to help them build everything from real-time spam detection systems to interactive data visualization tools.
Pallavi Thampi
2018 Fellow, City of Toronto
Pallavi is a User Experience Designer dedicated to inclusive and equitable design. She has worked with start-ups, social innovation hubs and community-run arts organizations to build accessible and empowering products.
Andrew Konoff
2018 Fellow, City of Toronto
Andrew is a startup founder, technical product marketer, and freelance developer. He believes great products flow from environments that allow people to share, explore, and be transformed by new perspectives and beliefs.
Fatima Sarah Khalid
2018 Fellow, Transport Canada
Fatima is a software engineer and civic hacker who’s worked inside and outside of government. Her adventures in civic tech have taken her from the U.S. to Canada, and she’s worked for clients like Microsoft, the City of Boston and Digital Echidna.
Andee Pittman
2018 Fellow, Transport Canada
Andee is a UX designer and consultant with a focus on social innovation and participatory design. She blends her design practice with a strong social conscience and has worked on challenges ranging from blockchain applications to housing and reconciliation.
Jennifer Payne
2018 Fellow, Transport Canada
Jennifer is a committed design researcher with an MSc in human-computer interaction. She has run user research studies for clients ranging from American Express to the United Nations, where she worked on a tool to help UN analysts query social media data.
2017 Code for Canada Fellows
Christine Lee
2017 Fellow, Government of Ontario
Christine has a unique background in digital product management, development, and finance. An advocate for lifelong learning, she volunteers at tech community workshops and has taught product management courses.
Santiago Mendoza
2017 Fellow, Government of Ontario
Santiago is a software engineer and machine-learning enthusiast who believes in the power of technology to change people’s lives. He has worked for startups and well-established companies in both Canada and Europe.
Sophie Sengmany
2017 Fellow, Government of Ontario
Originally from France and having lived in London and Singapore, Sophie moved to Toronto four years ago. She has a background in finance but her passion for helping people and a desire to be creative led her to UX Design.
Daniel Tse
2017 Fellow, Government of Canada
Daniel is a biomedical engineer and data analytics consultant. He has worked with the Government of Manitoba to design a digital tool to assess healthcare needs in remote communities.
Leon Lukashevsky
2017 Fellow, Government of Canada
Leon is a Toronto-based developer and has worked on web projects with clients like the University of Toronto, The Globe and Mail, Sustainability Solutions Group and Influitive.
Raluca Ene
2017 Fellow, Government of Canada
Raluca is a seasoned UX designer. She has worked in digital innovation for over 12 years with clients in a wide range of sectors including finance, education and healthcare.
Alumni
James Chan
Former Director
James is the Manager of Social Enterprise and Social Finance at VERGE Capital and a co-founder of Ottawa Civic Tech. He served as a Director from 2017-2019.
Craig Saila
Former Director
Craig is a leader in digital experience design. He is currently working with the CBC to deepen its audience experiences on the web, in mobile, and across a variety of emerging technology platforms. He served as a Director from 2017-2019.
Jenny Struyk
Former Operations Lead
Jenny has a background in nonprofit management and leadership, and served as Code for Canada’s Operations Lead from 2017-2018. She is driven to contribute to positive change, holds an MBA, and has designed and led programs for women and youth across the country
Meghan Hellstern
Former Education and Community Program Manager
Meghan has led digital transformation in both the public and private sectors and is an advocate for human-centred design. She worked with Code for Canada from 2017-2018, and is currently with the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Aaron Wytze Wilson
Jr. Research & Communications Analyst
Aaron is an MA candidate at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, and a journalist with experience covering civic tech movements in North America and Asia. He was a Jr. Research & Communications Analyst at Code for Canada in 2018.
Emily Kuzan
Jr. Program Analyst
Emily is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where she studied mathematics, economics and statistics. She was a Jr. Program Analyst at Code for Canada in 2017 and 2018.
Ravicha Ravinthiran
Jr. Program Analyst
Ravicha is heading into her first year at the University of Waterloo, studying science, business and political science. She was a Jr. Talent Acquisition Specialist at Code for Canada in 2018.
Hebah Masood
Jr. Program Analyst
Hebah is an MA candidate in Urban Planning at Rutgers University, focusing on community education and communication. She was a Jr. Program Analyst at Code for Canada in 2018.
Brendan Thompson
Strategic Partnerships Intern
Brendan is an MBA candidate at York University’s Schulich School of Business. He was a Strategic Partnerships Intern at Code for Canada in 2018.
Nana Temeng
Jr. Research and Communications Analyst
Nana is studying Public Policy and International Development at the University of Toronto. She worked at Code for Canada as a Jr. Research and Communications Analyst during the summer of 2017.
Isha Nepal
Jr. Research and Communications Analyst
Isha is a commerce student at the University of Toronto. She worked at Code for Canada as a Jr. Research and Communications Analyst during the summer of 2017.
Mari Zhou
Jr. Research and Communications Analyst
Mari is a graduate student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information and an organizer at Civic Tech Toronto. She worked at Code for Canada as a Jr. Research and Communications Analyst during the summer of 2017.
Shaquilla Singh
Jr. Research and Communications Analyst
Shaquilla is studying computer science at the University of Toronto and is an organizer at Civic Tech Toronto. She worked at Code for Canada as a Jr. Research and Communications Analyst during the summer of 2016.
Zakaria Abdulle
Jr. Research and Communications Analyst
Zakaria is a community organizer and youth advocate in Toronto. He worked at Code for Canada as a Jr. Research and Communications Analyst during the summer of 2016.
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