VIEW to the U transcribed
Season 8: We Are UTM; Episode #5
MScSM students/grads
Borys Brodziuk, Nandaraye Choi, Tina Elliott, Lauren O'Malley
Institute for Management and Innovation - Master of Science in Sustainability Management
U of T Mississauga
[intro music fades in and out]
Borys Brodziuk (BB): There's a rise in sustainability focus initiatives. And I think we understand now that we are a problem. And that's the first step, the technology that we have made mistakes in the past. We are responsible for what's happening, but we're also in charge and capable of changing it. We have the capacity to do so.
Nandaraye Choi (NC): We see all these issues. We learn about these issues, but we want to be involved in the change.
Tina Elliott (TE): We really wanted to target areas where we could make a big impact for people specifically.
Lauren O’Malley (LO): We have a responsibility to make these kinds of changes and come up with these innovative solutions. It is a lot of responsibility, but it's also very exciting. This program has definitely changed my entire perspective.
[theme music fades in]
Carla DeMarco (CD): Stewards of sustainability.
Every once in a while, an interview sticks with you, and you need to pull it out of the archives, even if it was recorded a while ago.
This revisited chat is one of those times, and even though it took place over a year ago, it is still so relevant. Relevant, first of all, because these students, who have since graduated, are exceptional. And they are award winners.
But also because the Institute for Management and Innovation’s Master of Science and Sustainability Management - MScSM for short – is an excellent program that continues to churn out champions of sustainability, award winning students, and just all around engaged and enlightened global citizens.
Hello, and welcome to VIEW to the U, an eye on the UTM academic community.
I'm Carla DeMarco at UofT Mississauga.
VIEW to the U is a monthly podcast that will feature UTM faculty members and students from a range of disciplines, who will illuminate some of the inner workings of UTM science labs, enlighten the social sciences and humanities hubs on campus, and put a spotlight on our academic community at large.
On the new season called “We are UTM,” I will introduce you to some of the people from our vibrant and ever-growing scholarly community from some of our newest members of UTM's leadership team, to students who are doing innovative things on the UTM campus.
For 2 years, in a row, MScSM students placed first in “Rain it In,” a competition that enables teams made up of college and university students to put forward their solutions for addressing climate change-induced flooding.
Today, partially in honor of Earth Day 2023, plus the fact that April showers indeed help Spring flowers sprout, we are looking to sowing the seeds of inspiration and great ideas from the amazing MScSM students that we are fortunate to have on the UTM campus.
Most recently in 2022, Team Rainbow, which includes MScSM students Victoria Boyd, Nya Lazarus-Munnick, Jananee Savuntharanathan, Natalie Biringer, Kaitlyn D’Lima, along with UofT Architecture student Dorottya Kiss, placed first in the competition for their Stormwater Management Solution that included bioretention and permeable pavement for the Town of Ajax.
And the Curb the Rain team, who placed first in 2021, includes Borys Brodziuk, Nandaraye Choi, Tina Elliott, and Lauren O’Malley.
The Curb the Rain team were accepted into the Leap Startup League program presented by ICUBE UTM and Sheridan EDGE. They were also finalists in the Early Stage Finalists category among 4 other start-ups, and they successfully won the ‘Sauga Pitch and Showcase presented by ICUBE UTM, Sheridan EDGE and Mississauga Business Enterprise Centre (MBEC) in December 2021.
In addition, they were accepted into the Foresight Canada Clean Tech Acceleration Program in January 2022.
Their project proposes an innovative, low-impact solution for the outdated storm water management systems that aims to tackle storm water before it - and the subsequent pollutants – get into the sewer systems. The Curb the Rain team suggests a redesign of existing curb infrastructure with permeable concrete that would withstand the impacts of climate change and mitigate its impacts.
The group were also truly interdisciplinary: Lauren obtained a Bachelor of Science in Life Sciences at UofT and Nandaray earned an Honours Bachelor of Science in Biology at Queen’s University. Borys studied economics and has a Bachelor of Commerce from TMU, and Tina came to MScSM after completing a Bachelor of Applied Science in industrial engineering at the University of Windsor. Over the course of this chat, we talk about how their interdisciplinary group worked well together, but also overcoming some challenges over the course of their project.
Just a note: this audio was recorded in the thick of lockdown, so we were all in different locations with varying mic quality, and I think one person was also speaking while masked, so apologies for some uneven audio – you can only do so much in post-production!
Also, this is a panel of speakers, but at the outset, Tina, speaks first, followed by Borys and Nandaraye, and the last voice you hear from the group is Lauren.
TE: It was for the “Rain it In” competition, and the point of the challenge was to reduce the impact of intense rain-fall events. So, what we really wanted to do is look at a way to prevent flooding on roads that cause a lot of outstanding damage to municipalities’ resident system. So that's what we were we focusing on.
We want to be a curbside, low-impact development, because we think there's a great opportunity in that specific application to use purpose or porous material to increase the capacity of storm-water systems, which could be updated or just currently insufficient.
So, the idea is because of our specific application, we really aim to remove water from the roads and capture it in our low-current development. We also think this will help reduce the amount of overflow that some other systems may experience, because it could be out of date, or because they don't have a sufficient capacity. So, we're really just trying to complement what's already available with our low-impact development.
We are looking at other aspects because we know there is a lot of research going on to the different ways to filter out pollutants, but our main goal right now is to just look at flood mitigation.
BB: Like Tina mentioned, the challenge that we applied for was to mitigate flooding in urban areas. But once we dived into it, we found other municipalities also are interested in water quality, water volume, and erosion, and sediments and things like that. So, those are complementary benefits that we want to add with our design that will primarily focus on flooding in urban areas. Some sidewalks, some buildings we've noticed – not everywhere – have used the porous material and impervious concrete, but from a road perspective and municipal infrastructure, there is nothing of this type of and in this scale, and using this design or material to help with the volume of the water.
CD: The group starts out by discussing the challenges and how they came up with the idea for their project, but also, they outline the impact and costs of flooding to municipalities.
NC: Tackling flooding in urban areas, I feel like we were just in our discussion of trying to come up with ideas. We thought about ‘Where is the flooding happening in urban areas?’ We know flooding, we see it usually on the roads, usually at the curbside. We see the catch basins are all often overwhelmed because they're not able to handle the intense rainfall events. And so, we're thinking, ‘oh, what if we tackle that area the curbside area?’ just because that's where we were seeing most of the floodings. I think that's where we started with the idea for the project.
BB: It was there, and if I may, I’ll add that we wanted to take a step back. We thought ‘if it’s happening there, why is it happening?’ And is there anything we can do before the water does, in fact, get into the sewer grates. And that's where the idea was typical, green areas, and soil absorbs water, and that's natural infrastructure. Cities don't have the capacity and the area to implement parks or trees or shrubbery as intensely as they can in dense areas.
So, we thought, thinking, city and infrastructure wise, material wise, what is available there to help mimic the groundwater that that soil absorbs, and minimize the cost to the reconstruction? Because we know that cities are conscious of the, and in general, everyone’s conscious of the capital cost of construction or reconstruction, for that matter, and roads are a very big task. We thought, ‘let's just zone in our one area, since the water doesn't really stay on the road. It flows to the sides, the curbs, and that's where they deal through sort of like what area, before taking the step back and seeing, prior to the water getting into the catch basins, what what can be done.
CD: And I guess I'm curious, because you come up with this concept, how did you even find out about this material in the first place?
BB: We saw a video before, that it was used somewhere, and it was just so amazing to see water just trickle through material like that. And then that video got lost, right? And then it came back at the right time, when Lauren kind of lead us to that idea.
LO: This was in our really early stages of the “Rain It In” competition, when we were coming up with what our idea was going to be, and we acknowledged the fact that the current storm-water systems don't have the capacity for the intensity of the current rainfall events that are occurring, and we're like, ‘how can you increase this capacity without having to tear up the road?’ which is really destructive. It's costly and annoying for everybody. So, we're okay, ‘what if there's a way to increase capacity on the road?’ And so we're like, ‘okay, maybe we can like install a structure on the side of the road?’ and then we're like, what if we can do this on a curb? So, instead of having one entry point into the storm-water system, we have a whole bunch of entry points.
And it's the analogy that, imagine you're in a building that's on fire, and everyone is trying to rush out one door. There's this huge backlog of people, and you can picture that that's the water. It's accumulating on the road, because there's just that one entry point. Well, what if there was like an infinite number of exit points out of the building or entry points into the storm-water system? And that's really how that idea materializes, with that permeable pavement is there is that infinite number of entry points into a storm-water system where there would have really only been one.
CD: You must have some kind of stat about how much cities are spending for some of the issues that they're dealing with in flooding?
BB: The Toronto flood from 2013 total, the Insurance Bureau of Canada quoted near – the most expensive natural disaster in Ontario or in Canada until the floods of B.C. – but they estimated the cost was nearly a $1 billion dollars. Municipalities in Ontario, that flood alone costs that much, and we thought there's a lot that can be done to prevent the damage, the delay, and the destruction that the flooding costs. So that's the number that definitely sticks out. And then, once we dig deeper, it's more locally focused in terms of what municipalities need to fix. So, typically road resurfacing or reconstruction and building, and in general in insurance claims of individuals like homeowners and things like that for small business owners.
CD: This is an environmental issue. So, I'm just curious if you've always been interested in these sorts of issues?
BB: Once we were in the program, I definitely did not focus on rain or flooding. I just knew it happened, and maybe when it happened more locally. I remember I was luckily on the sixth floor of my apartment balcony watching the park flood, and then the water overflow onto the roads, and I thought – at that point I don't think I was driving yet, I didn't have a car – so I didn't really relate to the cost of the flooding. And then, once we were in the program, we realized the interconnectedness of the environment and the urban landscape, and what we have been doing for years as a population, as a civilization, that contributes to these types of events, and now sort of like playing catch up. We're trying to fix what we've already broken, and going back to the natural landscapes as much as possible, because we realize that that's the best solution for now, to help reduce the damage and also replenish all we're losing what we're losing in urban landscapes. It's, as we know, that water that hits impermeable surfaces, runs off and takes up pollutants, and goes into our streams and lakes. It's such a grand big issue that I think flooding was just the tipping point. But it's like that iceberg photo you see online: the tipping point is flooding, and then you look below the water, and there's erosion, there's groundwater replenishing. And there's a lot more factors.
LO: And the issue with these types of flooding events that are caused by these intense rainfall events, is that they're increasing in frequency and intensity, and that's due to climate change. And this is something that we've learned in our program: you need to find a way to develop infrastructure, to mitigate these types of effects, these things that humans are doing to the natural environment. So, I think that there's a lot of pressure and responsibility coming out of this program because we have this knowledge base, and, you know, we know why these things are happening. And, as Borys mentioned, we have so much knowledge of how interconnected everything is that we almost have a responsibility to make these kinds of changes, and come up with these innovative solutions, and it is a lot of responsibility. But it's also very exciting.
CD: Were you always mindful of environmental issues? Or do you feel like you've just become that much more aware of it being in this program.
LO: Nandaraye and I come from a science undergrad. We kind of have that knowledge base of how the natural world works. But this program has definitely changed my entire perspective of it, and kind of given a little bit more sense of autonomy as to how you can be proactive, and actually change the things that are going on.
NC: Coming from like a hardcore scientific biology background. You learn about ecosystems and like what happens in nature, but you don't learn about how can we protect nature? How can we tackle the issues? And I think that's why most of us went to the program. We see all these issues, we learn about these issues, but we want to be involved in the change.
And I think all of us, I feel like are really like systems thinkers and problem solvers. And that's why we're very much interested in our program, and in topics related to climate change is because we want to tackle these issues, we want to find a solution, and just by having that interdisciplinary perspective is very beneficial.
BB: From an economics background, it was more my values from home enabled me to understand what sustainability is, and it was never labeled “sustainability,” it was a common respect for the natural world and for others. And then it kind of fell under the umbrella of “sustainability” when I saw the program. So, I don't want to say that I really had a focus or took any length to the sustainability. But in economics is primarily focused on growth and continuous production and consumption, and how you minimize costs here and there. And now that we know what sustainability it's actually increasing costs in the long term. So, that was a huge wake up calling program and my whole economics background just kind of flipped. Now I'm going to look at things from a completely different perspective. It's a valuable perspective to have, and I think I'm still learning. I'm still trying to grapple with how things work, because the more you know, the less you know, I think that's what we all realize now.
TE: I took industrial engineering from my undergrad. So, for me, I think I always had a big interest in sustainability. But how I saw my program, my undergraduate degree led me try and figure out other ways that we could be doing things better, whether it's a process or whether it's a product. And I think it kind of fits in really well with what we're trying to do, because, as everybody's already said, we know how damaging this is, and we know that there are opportunities to make such a big difference, and one of the things that I think drove my initial interest in the project we started was that we really wanted to target areas where we make a really big impact for people specifically not just municipalities, because what we found was a lot of the combined sewer systems that have really big capacity issues are in areas that could be very, very dense. And we can make a really big impact on people in that area who might not have the financial ability, or we don't have to experience building.
CD: How they all ended up together on this project, their roles, and future steps.
NC: In our program, in the first semester, we all were like assigned groups to do the group work for that semester, and we happened to all be in the same group, and we found that we really just jibed well together in terms of our worth, ethics, our personalities, and everything. We learned a lot from each other with our different backgrounds. And then, when we found the “Rain In In” competition, grouped together for that. We all just happen to work really well together, and we're so thankful for that. So, I think that's what makes our success as well, just like each other and our personality.
CD: I wonder what specific role, if you can sort of boil it down to, what you each played in this particular project.
TE: Because we've been doing this through school, we all have other commitments, so we all kind of do it all, and we know that each of us have weeks when we're super, super busy. Again, because we work so well together, I think it gives us that support to make sure that everything gets done without having to define roles amongst ourselves. Because, especially as a start-up, it's all a hustle, and it's a hustle all the time to get everything done so. And I think that also really speaks to why we work so well together, because we just kind of know what needs to get done, and what we do it. And just, our work as a group to make sure it gets done.
BB: I call it “hodgepodge of accountability.” That's what it is, and when we get together it's…we also value each other's time, right? So, we're conscious of the meeting times. And one thing we do, well, at least I've noticed, is that when we wrap up meetings, it's setting aside tasks for the next meeting, or what needs to be done. And therefore throughout the week we can check in on each other and see where the progress is at, if anyone needs any additional help. So that's something I really want to share about our team that’s commendable, and and it's not every day you get to work with a group like that. So…
LO: And honestly, beyond being coworkers, I think that, you know, we're all really good friends, and that is why we work so well together, because we have this mutual trust and this mutual respect, and we have this open communication between everybody. So, we know what's going on with everybody, not just in terms of like academic, but our personal lives as well, and I think that's really strengthened our relationship, and we have that to show in all of our successes that we've had so far. And I don't think it's necessarily because of, you know, what we've come up with as a team, but it's how strong we are as a group together.
CD: You've mentioned some of the good things. Is there anything that you would say has been kind of a challenge with collaborating?
BB: Any post-interview meeting. It just seems like we take one step forward, and then we meet someone, and it's five steps back. It's like a regroup. It's like, ‘Wow, we didn't think of this,’ or ‘wow, they're really smart,’ while we have a lot of work to do. And yet we persevere, that we kept those interviews up. We kept asking the questions, and I think through that process, that's how our questions got better. I wouldn't say they're perfect, and then probably never going to be perfect. But at least we're moving in the right direction. It feels like it, even albeit slowly. So that's definitely been a challenge, because sometimes we leave interviews and we're just a little lost or astray.
CD: I think that happens a lot, though I have to say. I think, because sometimes when you bring that outside perspective, it's like the person that identifies your blind spots, and it's like, ‘Oh, my gosh! we never thought of that….’
LO: And even doing everything on Zoom. I was just thinking about this now, but I realized that every single thing that we have done for this project has been online. We have never really discussed this in-person, all four of us together. That's crazy! Like we've done this whole thing, like over a year, worth of work, all completely, virtually.
BB: That reminds me, I think the best memory I have is the design part where it was all done online. I must have taken a few meetings until we all understood what we were thinking. Because I feel like if you were all in the same room. You could draw it out, and it would save you so much time, but because it was online, and some people weren't even. Like I'm, for example, that that call - remember, I was not there on video? So, I'm just trying to explain it with the words. And it's…you can just imagine how challenging that could be.
LO: We were like drawing things and holding it up to the camera and being like ‘No. See this? This is the road. This is the curb. No, no, no! That one right there.’
BB: The jam board with a different slice? And everyone had their own vision. It was at one point, it was three different visions, and we thought, ‘are we on the same page?’
NC: Yeah, that was a good time now.
CD: I'm even thinking, Lauren, when you talk about holding something up like, I know for myself. Sometimes you hold things up, and then you realize the person can't see it at all, because there’s a glare on paper.
CD: And so then, I know that you won the “Rain it In” competition. But I just wondered if you could tell me what that experience was like winning?
TE: Yeah, we did the “Rain it In” competition. And then we moved on to the ICUBE Sauga pitch competition. That was a little bit more challenging. I think what the great thing about the “Rain It In” was that we did have the freedom to kind of develop an idea from start to finish. Because, again, we kind of just decided to join it, because it fit in with some of our interests in sustainability, and it allowed us to dive into. Now, I sure wasn't familiar with rain water. And then we just trying to figure out what the next step is. So, it really, I think, set us up to come up with a really, really good idea which we did, since then just trying to bring it forward.
BB: “Rain it In” really felt like the applied portion of school to reality. It was like our first chance at incorporating how we think, right, because we don't know much about flooding rainwater and how the solution can be applied from a perspective of sustainability and improvement. So, I think that was takeaway from that. And there was a lot of leeway. So, we did a lot of general, primary research, secondary research, and then we worked our way from there.
CD: I guess, looking ahead, I understand that you were accepted in the Foresight Canada Clean Tech Acceleration program. And so, I'm just wondering, what does this program entail for your work? Like, is it taking it, then, to the next iteration of it? Or…?
TE: So, it was kind of the next logical step for us. I mentioned that we did do the LEAP Start-up week through it, which was a fantastic experience for us. I think what was really interesting about Foresight was that it's nationwide, and it's also specifically geared towards clean tech, which I think what we are kind of missing from ICUBE. Being in the clean tech space is very, very different, I think for consumer product space, because all of the costs and everything we're doing is just at such a larger scale in terms of the instruction, and it changes how you're interacting with the customers. So, for us, we actually just finished that program. So, what we really need to focus on now is product development and trying to find some sort of pilot or application where we can prove our concept parts before we try and move on to the next phase of Foresight, which is launched where they're really trying to help us expand and build a business.
CD: It sounds like there's still some development that needs to happen. But really, ideally, what you want to do is just get maybe a pilot project going with the municipality to get this in the works and show them?
BB: Yeah, that would be ideal.
NC: In the city, or like, in an area in a city that floods a lot, I think, to kind of see the difference that it means.
BB: Yeah, it's interesting because, like the using that material in impervious concrete or permeable pavement, it's been used before. So, the kind of proof of concept is there. It just hasn't been used in the capacity that we are planning to implement it, and we're trying to find barriers or reasons why it's not, while also approaching a channel of piloting it and designing it to make it durable but make it worthwhile for the municipality to take on so ideally. The end customer will be in our municipalities.
There's a rise in sustainability focus initiatives, and I think we understand now that we are the problem, and that's the first step. It's acknowledging that we have made mistakes in the past. We are responsible for what's happening. But we're also in charge and capable of changing it. We have the capacity to do so, and nothing will change if you don't, change it.
We have had some very good feedback, I think Tina mentioned that when we are just displaying this, these ideas to industry experts, they're acknowledging: this is a great idea, this is what you need to focus on more. This is, we understand that we don't have the technical background per se, for our design, but that doesn't mean we're ready to stop. We are emboldened and encouraged to get this to market and to see some change. It'd be great to see it, walking down the street, we see your design being implemented.
CD: Their Curb the Rain challenge was part of the capstone project for their MScSM program, which the group says they were able to run with, but they definitely felt armed with what they needed, and were supported by the MScSM staff and faculty members.
LO: In the way that the MScSM program gave us that interdisciplinary knowledge, which we then applied to the program: that's the way that it really supported us. It gave us that knowledge base that we then applied to using like this real-world situation. But then, after that, we were pretty much self-sufficient. But we've also had so much support from the course coordinators. We had, like, Rose Mary [Craig], we had Claire [Westgate] that's really excited about it. We had Shashi [Kant] when we reach out to him in terms of, ‘hey, we might need a supervisor for this thing. Would you be okay with that?’ And like, they're so supportive of us. And I think that they're really excited when students coming out of the MScSM program have these dreams and have these big plans. Because I think that's ultimately what the objective of this program really is, is to create these students that can then move on to change the world, really.
BB: We understand, you won't get anywhere on your own. And this endeavour has really highlighted that message because we're grateful to be in the program, grateful for the services offered through the school. But without the email from the coordinator for this challenge, we wouldn't have ever heard about it potentially, right? Without the support from our other program coordinator to ask whether we should apply for grants, we wouldn't be taking that direction without Professor Sashi's Sustainability Prize, and another venture that we'd want to apply to, we wouldn't have these opportunities available to us to. one, market what we're trying to do, but also market ourselves. So, it's continuous learning process. We're learning from it a lot. And maybe setbacks just mean that we're asking the right questions and growing. And I think that's what Lauren was saying. The objective of the program is to apply what you're learning into the real world and show that there are people that do care.
CD: Thank you so much for meeting with me, and I feel like you all, the four of you, have given me hope for the future, because when I look at all of the bad news about climate change. I'm just like ‘oh, my God! Like, there's no hope.’ But there is hope. It's all these bright young minds, that I have to remember you're all out there, and you're working to make things better for the rest of us so…
BB: Thank you for the opportunity for having us share our story, and we look forward to working, potentially, later down the road. Best of luck with the rest of your endeavors as well.
CD: Thank you.
[theme music fades in]
CD: I would like to thank everyone for listening to today's show.
I would especially like to thank my guests Borys Brodziok, Nandaraye Choi, Tina Elliott and Lauren O'Malley, now graduates from IMI's MScSM program, for being so generous with their time, and extremely patient with the amount of time it's taken me to pull this episode together.
I must add that, initially, this was just meant to be a written profile, but they also allowed me to fiddle with the audio that I had originally intended to be my working transcript for the file and turn it into the episode you just listened to.
This group was truly wonderful, and I was very impressed by their respect for one another, as well as their commitment to sustainability. Wherever they end up, it is clear from these four individuals, they care deeply about the planet, and they will go on to do great things in the world
Also, an extra shout out to Claire Westgate, manager, external partnerships and communications at IM for putting the Curb The Rain team on my radar, and for all her support over the past few years.
She, along with the late great Rose Mary Craig, have helped make the MScSM program what it is today, and Claire is just an all-around dynamo and stellar colleague.
Thanks, Claire!
If you are a faculty member or student, at UTM, please get in touch with me. I would love to meet as many people from our campus’s scholarly community as possible, and think through how to highlight people here. I am continuing on with my seventh year of podcasting at UTM, and the theme for the season, “We are UTM,” but I'll be thinking about what I might want to cover next. Ideas are most welcome.
Also, if you can take the time to rate the podcast in iTunes, it helps others find the show and hear more from my great UTM academic community.
Lastly, and as always, thank you to Timmy Tik Tok for his tracks to support and everything. Thank you.
[theme music fades out]
BB: Save part of it for a podcast.
CD: Yeah, maybe if you'd be open to being on the podcast at some point.
NC: That would be awesome.
CD: Alright!