The Future of Wellbeing: AI, Community & Social Impact

What does it mean to build AI in service of wellbeing? A one-day forum on tech, climate, mental health, community & social impact.
About this Event

From Mental Wellbeing to Community Wellbeing

A Community Panel & Networking

An evening forum on what it means to build technology in service of wellbeing.

As AI reshapes how we live, work, and care for one another, one question matters more than ever: what does it mean to build and adopt technology in service of holistic wellbeing — human, community, and societal — in the Canadian context?

The Mindful Impact Forum brings together nonprofit leaders, founders, technologists, youth, and changemakers for a focused day of conversation and practice. We move deliberately from the human to the technical: first setting the foundation of what wellbeing truly means, then turning to how we build and adopt AI responsibly in service of it.

After launching our forum series in Vancouver this past March, we're bringing it to Toronto for a single, focused edition — in partnership with Google Developer Groups and The Dais, TMU.

What you'll experience

• A flagship day of remarks, a keynote, and an opening panel on wellbeing
• A creatively facilitated community forum — real cross-sector dialogue
• A hands-on AI & technology for social impact workshop
• Practical tools for leadership, resilience, and innovation you can use the next morning
• A genuinely cross-sector room: founders, youth leaders, community builders, and changemakers

The program

Session 1 — Framing & Community Panel: What Wellbeing Means

Welcome remarks, an opening presentation, and panel, Redefining Wellbeing, with diverse voices setting the tone for what holistic wellbeing means today — beyond the individual, and in the Canadian context of mental health, climate, and technology.

Session 2 — AI and Responsible Innovation: From Principles to Practice

A fireside chat from The Dais at TMU — Jake Hirsch-Allen and Camara Chambers setting the real standard for responsible AI: not just what it can do, but who it's built for. Then they hand the room straight to tech and AI professionals and Google Developer Groups for live demos of AI built for real impact.

Session 3 — Finding our Wisdom Way Forward: Future Community Wellbeing & Leadership

A participatory sensemaking session inviting attendees to reflect on the future of community wellbeing and their own practices and pathways to co-create it. Using prompts throughout the room, participants are invited to contribute their lived experiences, questions, and possibilities to a collective Wall of Wisdom to seed dialogue and action.

Who This Is For

You’ll feel at home here if you are:

• Young professionals navigating pressure, purpose, and growth
• Youth leaders and students exploring impact-driven careers
• Founders, social entrepreneurs, and innovators
• Professionals in mental wellbeing, social impact, and community work
• Anyone drawn to mindful leadership and meaningful connection

Event Details

📍 Location: The Sandbox, TMU (341 Yonge St 3rd floor, Toronto, ON M5B 1S1)

📅 Date: Oct 14, Wednesday 2026

⏰ Time: 6 PM - 9:00 PM (Door open 5:30 PM)

🎫 Ticket — FREE -$50

All proceeds support Wisdomway Impact’s mental wellbeing initiatives. Student & Youth (under 25, limited spots) FREE

Speakers

1. AJ Kim is a social entrepreneur, global impact practitioner, dedicated to building spaces where inner development and collective change meet. Her work spans leadership development, youth empowerment, and community wellbeing initiatives in Asia, Africa, and Canada, grounded in field experiences, dialogue, and systems thinking. Through forums, education programs, and partnerships, she explores how mental wellbeing can become a foundation for stronger communities, sustainable leadership, and long-term social impact.
2. Alejandro Castellanos Toronto-based AI Systems Architect, Alejandro builds trustworthy AI technologies for community resilience, public-interest intelligence, and human-centred care. His work emphasizes evidence, human oversight, and technology that strengthens—not replaces—human judgment.
3. Camara Chambers (Director of Learning and Events, The Dais at TMU) Named one of 100 Black Women in Canada to Watch and a national leader by The Philanthropist Journal, Camara has spent her career where equity meets civic engagement — leading a national policy program for Europe's largest LGBTQ charity, and serving as Executive Director of Volunteer Toronto, Canada's largest volunteer centre. At the Dais she builds community partnerships and designs leadership programs for Canada's next generation of leaders, and she founded Let's Hike T.O., which has introduced over 1,300 people to the trails. She brings the question that keeps the whole session honest: responsible for whom?
4. Carolyn Shaw is the Co-Founder, President and Chief Creative Officer of Humanity, an independent, Black-owned and female-led agency built for changemakers. With more than 20 years of experience in marketing, branding and design, she helps purpose-driven organizations turn bold ambitions into ideas, experiences and campaigns that move people. Carolyn believes the strongest organizations are built by keeping people—their needs, dignity and lived experiences—at the centre of how we lead, communicate and create change. Her work spans health, education, culture, sustainability and the nonprofit sector, bringing strategy and creativity together to make complex issues more human and meaningful. A lifelong learner and advocate for purpose-led leadership, Carolyn is especially interested in how organizations can pursue progress without losing sight of the people that progress is meant to serve.
5. Danielle (dane) Cadhit is an experience designer, story weaver, facilitator, and lifelong observer of patterns. At Coralus, she crafts experiences that invite people to connect more deeply, see and do things differently, and (re)imagine new possibilities.Her curiosity tends to live in the spaces between things: between people and ideas, work and life, structure and emergence, the inner world and the communities we build around us. Lately, she has been especially interested in what happens when we stop treating ourselves like something to optimize, and instead pay more attention to the rhythms, seasons, relationships, and conditions that shape how we actually live, work, gather, and create.
6. Hilary Van Welter is CEO (Chief Exploration Officer) at Ascentia, Coralus Transformation Architect, and Associate Steward at Bounce Beyond. She has spent a lifetime exploring how life, people, organizations, communities and nature flourish, evolve and bring new possibilities into being. Her perspective has been shaped by decades of looking at these questions from many angles, across government, business, social innovation, community and systems transformation. Her work lives at the intersection of strategy, imagination and living systems, with a particular curiosity about the relationships and conditions that reimagine even the term wellbeing beyond the individual into community and society. She brings the wisdom of a long trajectory, a deep trust in life’s intelligence, and an ability to sense patterns and possibilities while they are still emerging.
7. Jake Hirsch-Allen (Director of Partnerships, The Dais at TMU) Jake works at the intersection of inclusive technology, ethical data, and responsible AI. He built public-private partnerships in workforce development and higher education at LinkedIn, co-founded Lighthouse Labs, and advises impact investors, public-sector leaders, and startups on responsible tech and AI governance. A former intellectual property and international criminal lawyer who clerked at the Supreme Court of Israel, he can speak to the ethics, the policy, and the build of AI all at once — and here, he opens the questions the demos will have to answer.
8. Katie Choi (she/her) is the Lead of Community Education at HF Care and a registered social worker with experience supporting diverse communities across the mental health, developmental services, and settlement sectors. Drawing on both her professional background and her lived experience as an immigrant and the daughter of immigrant parents, Katie is passionate about exploring how culture, migration, and family dynamics shape holistic wellness. Through her work, she supports front-line workers in building culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and strengths-based approaches to service delivery.
9. Kritima Kukreja Technology professional and mobile developer, Founder of Syntech AI. Specialized in creating smart agents, chatbots and automations that scales for the client’s needs. A former experienced developer in well-known companies such as IBM, MicroSoft, Bank of America, and Google. Kritima builds user-focused digital experiences and explores the intersection of AI, mobile technology, and emerging digital tools. She is also an active member of Toronto’s tech community, supporting and mentoring fellow builders.
10. Swelen Andari is the Director of Strategy, Climate Resilience & Youth Mental Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). She leads a research and systems change initiative to address climate distress, climate action, and active hope for youth. Swelen leads the CAMH Mental Health & Climate Response Initiative, an organization-wide effort addressing climate-related mental health impacts. Trained as a Creative Arts Therapist and with a background in systems thinking, and implementation science, she has over a decade of experience in system-level initiatives to improve access, service design, prevention, and youth leadership in Ontario’s child/youth mental health system. For several years, Swelen was involved in local and national climate justice organizing, including collaborating with Climate Justice Toronto, supporting the 350’s Our Time Campaign, and co-designing a social movement organization committed to advancing equitable climate solution, good work and dignity for all.

Organizer & Sponsors

Wisdomway Impact connects mental wellbeing with community, social, and environmental resilience. We support leadership programs, community wellbeing strategies, and cross-sector impact projects that strengthen trust and collective care. We believe community wellbeing begins with inner wellbeing. Your ticket directly supports ongoing community initiatives and leadership development programs.

The Dais, Toronto Metropolitan University is a public policy and leadership think tank, working at the intersection of technology, education and democracy to build shared prosperity and citizenship for Canada. With over 20 research reports exploring how AI is reshaping work, public policy, education and the nonprofit sector, the Dais has helped organizations build the knowledge and practical skills needed to adopt AI responsibly and effectively through the RAISE initiative which saw 550+ nonprofit professionals across Canada access practical training on AI governance and adoption.

GDG Toronto is a chapter of Google Developer Groups, a global network of local, community-run developer groups. We bring people together around Google technologies through talks, hands-on workshops, and hackathons to be the technology literacy bridge for our community.

Ready to Join?

Come as you are.

Leave with new connections, grounded clarity, and renewed energy for the work ahead.

👉 Follow us on IG @mindfulimpactforum for updates!

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