Deniz and Szu-Chia at the AGE-WELL Summer Institute in Toronto

From 22-26 June 2026, we attended the AGE-WELL 9th Annual EPIC (Early Professional, Inspired Careers) Summer Institute in Toronto, Canada. This year’s theme, Co-Creating Possibility: Transportation & Mobility for Urban Older Adults, brought together trainees from diverse disciplines for a week-long, intensive project-based learning experience focused on addressing mobility and public transit challenges faced by older adults in Toronto.

Throughout the week, we collaborated with older adults, community organisations, policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders to co-create technology-enabled solutions. We also took part in a series of lectures and interactive workshops led by experts from AGE-WELL Summer Institute faculty from across Canada, the City of Toronto, Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Wheel-Trans, Parachute Canada, Root & Seed, and the University of Toronto. These sessions equipped us with practical tools and insights in stakeholder engagement, design thinking, rapid prototyping, business model development, and pitching, which we applied directly to our projects.

Deniz

At the Summer Institute, I joined a team exploring the theme of "Reliable, Dignified and User-Centred Specialised Transportation", and teammed up with peers from various disciplines including biomedical engineering and public health. As AccessVoice, our challenge was to improve an existing specialised public transit service for people with mobility challenges and non-visible disabilities. From the very first day, we were immersed in a real-world service challenge that would shape the rest of the week.

For me, one of the most impactful parts of the Summer Institute was our visit to the Dixon Hall Community Centre on the very first day. There, we had the opportunity to engage directly with people with lived experience to ground our work in their perspectives. Starting the programme this way had a lasting impact on our project to have a strong user-centred foundation. In addition, this visit also helped me quickly settle into the programme and build connections with my teammates. We were not just introduced to the challenge, we immediately began working together as a team.

After interviewing nearly ten participants at the community centre, we were introduced to our lived experience mentor, who joined our team for the remainder of the week. With all the insights gathered, one recurring theme became impossible to ignore: Service users often cannot communicate their experiences effectively, leaving them uncertain whether their feedback is ever received or acted upon. While feedback channels already exist, there is little visibility into what happens after a rider submits a concern or suggestion. As a result, our team's initial concept was an AI-based customer feedback platform helping collect and analyse feedback from riders. As the week progressed, however, the idea evolved significantly.

Throughout the Summer Institute, the guidance from the AGE-WELL mentors significantly challenged us to think beyond simply developing a technology. They rather encouraged us to think deeply about the kind of impact we wanted to create. For us, this meant supporting the process of turning feedback into action. Therefore, our idea evolved from creating an AI-based customer feedback service to a non-profit advocacy group. This was another key learning for me that an effective solution does not necessarily end with developing the product.

I am very happy to be one of the students selected by ACRC to participate in this event. This is a week that I will carry with me for a long time.

Szu-Chia

Our team, with expertise in engineering, business, psychology, and medicine, focused on improving pedestrian and road safety for older adults by ensuring they have the time they need to cross streets safely. We collaborated closely with older adults from Dixon Hall Community to better understand their lived experiences, and their insights directly shaped the design of the solution.  

We co-created SafeCross, a smart crossing system designed to reduce pedestrian injuries and help older adults and people with mobility challenges cross intersections more safely and confidently. The system combines wearable beacons with smart traffic signal devices to provide personalised crossing times while collecting anonymised user data to keep improving intersection safety. 

On the final day, each team pitched a solution to a panel of judges. We are delighted that SafeCross was selected as the winning pitch, and we look forward to continuing to refine the solution with support from AGE-WELL.

The Summer Institute provided me with an inspiring environment for transdisciplinary collaboration, creativity, and networking. Being part of an interdisciplinary team and co-creating with older adults were some of the most rewarding aspects of the experience. It deepened my appreciation of how bringing diverse perspectives together can lead to meaningful, feasible, and more person-centred innovations. The experience also strengthened me with valuable skills and fresh perspectives that I will apply throughout my PhD research and future careers. I am grateful to ACRC and AGE-WELL for their support and thank everyone who made this fulfilling experience happen.