CityStudio Durham Success Stories

Fall 2023

In order to improve workflow efficiency and encourage new ideas, the project sought to investigate use cases for generative AI in the public sector. The project's goal was to investigate tools and guidelines for using generative AI in a responsible manner.

Winter 2024

This project aimed to support ongoing implementation and refinement of the Durham Climate Dashboard. This serves the emerging need for more comprehensive and up-to-date data on climate-related metrics to support decision-making and climate action efforts in the region.

Summer 2023

This project aimed to help people managing projects at Durham Region be supported and have resources available to them to support their projects and make documentation easier.  The Region has a resource library of over 80 project management templates.

Fall 2022

The Ambassador Program is for students looking to get involved, positively contribute to the campus community and become leaders on campus. Once Ambassadors have successfully worked their way through Levels 1 to 3 of the program, they become eligible to participate in Level 4.

Fall 2023

This project examined the challenges of human trafficking in Canada and provided students with the opportunity to develop practical strategies to help reduce the impact that human trafficking has on the safety and well-being for people living in the Durham region. 

Fall 2023

This project aims to measure the relationship between the prevalence of online activity (virtual work and online shopping) and the relative value of residential and commercial properties. 

Winter 2024

The Works Department at Durham Region manages testing of materials (e.g. asphalt, concrete, soil) from sites around the Region such as roads, sewers and construction sites. They wanted to develop a more efficient way to manage requests that come into their materials testing group in order to help with confirming, approving and modifying requests and allocating time and staff resources. Another goal of this project was to aid in tracking of on site materials testing usage by the Works Department on a project by project basis.

Fall 2022

The Region of Durham’s Transportation Planning team engaged students in the development of the Durham Meadoway Plan. The Durham Meadoway will be a 27 km multi-use path and linear park stretching through the Gatineau Hydro Corridor from Rouge National Urban Park in Pickering to Simcoe Street in Oshawa.

Winter 2023

The Region of Durham wanted to better understand the customer service expectations of the members of the community and the impact of changing demographics on the deployment of the multi channel (e.g. phone, email, chat, social media, in-person services) customer service program. This was accomplished through the application of lean six sigma processes to develop a 10-year customer service strategy that will continuously improve service quality while also reducing costs.

Winter 2023

Unattached single adults have the highest poverty in Canada and current federal and provincial social assistance programs are inadequate for this population. This project sought to understand:

• What is the local context?
  • What does local data tell us about this target population?
  • Who are key stakeholders supporting poverty reduction for this target population?
  • What poverty reduction supports are available locally to support this target population?
• What are best or promising practices to.