PPX: A Public Policy Forum venture

PPX is the Public Policy Forum's (PPF) primary youth-centred initiative. PPF launched PPX in February of 2009 with a mission to increase youth engagement in mainstream public policy discourse by making conversations around Canada's public policy challenges accessible, meaningful, and relevant to young people.

PPX brings together young Canadians from different regions, disciplines, and sectors to think about, inform, and generate approaches to tackle global and Canadian public challenges. PPX focuses on cultivating inter-disciplinary and inter-generational thinking and uses a co-creation, open source approach to develop projects and event formats.

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Contact:
Vinod Rajasekaran
Research Associate
613-238-7858 x 230

Current Projects

What Drives Gen Y?: Cross-country Dialogues on Retaining Young Talent

The first of its kind in Canada, PPX convened a series of six (Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Saint John, Regina, Montréal) cross-country workshops on retaining young talent that engaged over 300 young Canadians in conversation.

The competition for talent is intensifying and companies must constantly innovate to recruit and retain bright young people. In order to recruit and retain talent, organizations need a better understanding of what drives the new generation. To this end, these workshops brought together young professionals with diverse backgrounds from across Canada to:

  • Explore and articulate values, interests, and priorities of this emerging generation;
  • Understand what these mean in terms of recruiting and retaining young talent today,
  • Learn together, share what works, and deliberate over recommendations to shape organizations of the future.

At these dialogues, participants also had the opportunity to listen to: His Honour the Honourable Gordon Barnhart, Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, Andrew Potter, Columnist, Macleans, Ilona Dougherty, Executive Director of Apathy is Boring, Cassie Doyle, Deputy Minister, Natural Resources Canada, Tim Coates, Executive Director of 21inc. and other leaders.

We are in the process of preparing a final report which will highlight themes from the in-person dialogues, illustrate best practices from different sectors, outline mechanisms that can foster inter-generational dialogue, and present youth generated ideas for retention. Look for it in February.

Summaries of workshop discussion:
Ottawa (Feb. 5, 2009)
Toronto (Mar.12, 2009)
Calgary (May 7, 2009)
Saint John (Sept. 17, 2009)
Regina (Dec. 1, 2009)
Montreal (Dec 15, 2009)

Future Projects

Silobuster: a quarterly social that stimulates big-picture thinking

3 Presentations. 3 Young Innovators. 3 Perspectives. We are exploring the possibility of a series of after-work events starting the Spring designed to highlight cross-cutting implications of today's complex challenges. Presentations by young innovators who are tackling a complex public issue from 3 different fields/sectors/angles.
PPX uses a co-creation approach to developing projects. Have an idea for a youth dialogue? Contact us and let's explore it together.