Obama was still president, the UK just voted for Brexit, nobody had heard of TikTok yet, and everyone either loved or hated the new Instagram logo. Remember that?

I (Ryan) had just finished my masters program in urban planning, where I spent the last four months of my degree organizing a youth conference about city building in Toronto as part of my research project. Having grown up volunteering in summer camps and youth leadership programs, I saw that there was a strong interest among youth to create change in their communities. Yet the young urban planner in me noticed that there wasn’t a lot being done to educate and engage youth about the profession I was about to enter. I also realized that my peers and I had barely learned anything about urban planning in high school geography or civics classes.

Ryan organized his first youth city-building conference as part of his graduate research project in 2016.

Later that summer, a friend invited me to organize and run a week-long summer camp for newcomer youth in Markham. Knowing that this wasn’t a one-person job, I invited Angela and Katrina to help. Angela’s background was in architecture and Katrina was well-versed in the design thinking process, and both of them had experience working with youth. Yet this was the first time the three of us had to think about how to introduce urban planning and design concepts to a group of children and teens in a fun and interactive way. In the end, the kids had a blast and so did we. We called it the Urban Minds camp, and the name stuck with us ever since.

Ryan, Angela, and Katrina created Urban Minds in 2016.

Fast forward to 2021. 

We are still weathering through a global pandemic. By now we’ve learned the ins and outs of running youth conferences and workshops, both in person and online. We’ve reached hundreds of youth through our events. We’ve trained and mentored dozens more youth leaders who have designed and built their own community projects. We’ve also developed a consulting practice to support our clients and partners in engaging youth on urban issues and creating youth-friendly spaces, programs, and services. We’ve helped municipalities like Markham and Mississauga with youth engagement on their planning studies, as well as partners like Evergreen and The Bentway with youth outreach for their programs and events.

Our first 1UP Toronto Conference made the front page of Metro News in 2017!

Looking back, there were so many highlights and great memories. We’ve made headline news with our first conference. We’ve built a public art installation in the middle of downtown Toronto. The idea of travelling may seem foreign today, but we were fortunate to travel to Detroit and Ottawa to share our work at conferences with other professionals. But of all our accomplishments, what we are the most proud of is the fact that we were able to kick-start a movement of youth-led city building.

Our team designed and built #WouldYouRatherTO, an interactive public art installation at King St and Spadina Ave from 2018 to 2019.

What are our goals for the next five years?

Our dream is to build a strong community of young city builders and working professional allies. We want to be city builders and relationship builders who continue to bridge the gap between youth and decision makers. In addition to expanding the 1UP Program and our consulting practice, our focus over the next 5 years will be to facilitate even more connections between youth and professionals. We want to make it easier for young people of all backgrounds to have access to volunteering and mentorship opportunities related to city building. We want to help planners and designers incorporate ideas from youth by quickly finding an active and diverse audience. We plan to build a platform for this community to work together and co-create solutions for our cities.

Our youth ambassadors facilitated a pop-up engagement for ​the City of Markham’s 2020-2023 Strategic Plan, ”Building Markham’s Future Together”.

This is one of those picture-perfect moments we wish to recreate again and again, where youth have the opportunity to lead other youth and engage with their community. 

Whether you are a youth participant, a volunteer, a partner, or a supporter, thank you for being on this journey with us.

You can continue to follow our journey on social media and our newsletter. Together, we can help empower youth and build equitable and sustainable cities.

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Ryan Lo and Angela Ng are the Co-Founders of Urban Minds.