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This job expired on February 14, 2015

Coordinator, Feeding Nine Billion University of Guelph

  • Date Posted December 16, 2014
  • Location Guelph, CA
  • Category Education / Nonprofit
  • Job Type Full-Time
Job Description About Us:

Many experts are worried that the 21st century will be a hungry one.  Population growth and changing diets mean that our demand for food is rising fast.  Climate change, dwindling water supplies, and high energy prices are set to make food harder, and more expensive to produce.  Add to this, the fact that currently almost a billion people go hungry every night and we have to conclude that the world food system is in a very serious crisis.

Some people even describe this as a “perfect storm” of problems and predict that worse poverty, riots and war are almost inevitable unless the farmers of the world produce 70% more food. Others point out that we have enough food, only it’s not adequately distributed.  Still others think that modern agriculture is hopelessly broken and to survive the 21st century, we need to embrace small, local farming systems. 

But advocates for one or other of these positions often hold extremely strident views.  For instance, advocates of better food distribution often argue that the only way to fix our broken food system is for everyone to adopt a vegetarian diet, which they claim will help because meat takes a lot more resources to produce than grains or vegetables.  But others disagree, and think this is naïve arguing that all we need to do is give more funding to research centers so that scientists develop new types of seeds that can produce more food with less resources.  But still others disagree and argue that large corporations tend to be the ones to benefit when new technologies are developed and that science rarely helps society or the environment. 

The purpose of this project, video and web page is to try and explore these issues to better understand them and explore how, and under what conditions, scientific advances, local food, better distribution, etc., can and should play a role in feeding the nine billion people who will soon call this planet home.

Position Description:

The University is looking for a Coordinator to support a Food Solutions Innovation Hub that will be attached with the Food Institute and Institute for Community Engaged Scholarship. This hub will act as a research and incubation hub for prototypes and cutting edge innovations addressing food systems issues. Borrowing from the technology sector, the early mandate of the hub will focus on a series of events called “hack-a-thons” which involves computer programmers and others to develop software and software programs, with the aim of engaging student-faculty teams to create and implement solutions to vital issues facing Canada’s food system.

The goals of this initiative include:
  • Fostering student engagement and promoting social innovation through identifying, prototyping and incubating solutions to pressing food issues
  • Helping to catalyze a culture of social innovation around the food system and infuse this into university-level educational programs
  • Fostering cross-sectoral and cross-departmental partnerships within the University of Guelph and with industry and community partners to expand the scope and reach of innovative research and provide new opportunities for the application of this knowledge; and
  • Create and operationalize scalable solutions and products that address food systems issues.
Reporting to the Associate Professor, Geography, the specific responsibilities of the Coordinator include:
  • Coordinating annual “hack-a-thons”, including securing space, outreach to participants, coordinating food and other logistics, securing speakers and adjudicators, coordinating sign-up and prizes;
  • Liaising with University of Guelph faculty to integrate food systems learning into undergraduate curriculum
  • Working with on- and off-campus business incubator programs, and local entrepreneurs to design an upper-year trans-disciplinary course in prototyping food systems innovations
  • Coordinating a multi-stakeholder committee to oversee the project
  • Coordinating existing grants and funder relationships, and seeking additional funding as necessary
  • Participating in national network on building innovative pedagogical opportunities at the post-secondary level
  • Coordinating and executing an evaluation plan for this project
  • Promoting this project on-campus and in the wide community
Requirements of this position include:
  • Undergraduate degree in a related field
  • Minimum two years related experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
  • Project Management and relevant educational experience in (for example): food security, social innovation, business, project management
  • Experience managing budgets of at least $100,000
  • Experience coordinating logistics for large multi-day events
  • Excellent communication skills, both oral and written
  • Experience collaborating with and reporting to multi-stakeholder committees
  • Successful experience grant writing and maintaining strong funder relationships
  • Knowledge of food-systems education at post-secondary level in Canada
  • Interest in and/or connection with the social innovation, start-up, and food security communities in Ontario and Canada
  • Comfortable public speaking presence
  • Experience designing and executing evaluation projects.
Classification:        
  • Grant/ Trust fund position, Band 5* (excluded grid)
  • Normal Hiring Range: $23.73 - $26.50 per hour
Compensation this position is : hourly How to apply
This job expired on February 14, 2015
DeadlineDecember 22, 2014

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