Meghan Hellstern

A human-centered designer and technologist at heart, Meghan brings a diverse set of experiences to her work as a Senior Project Officer with the Policy Innovation Platform. From user research and process design to public engagement and digital strategy, Meghan is always eager to find ways to improve our collective capacity for problem solving in complex policy domains.

Meghan has a decade of experience working in a variety of roles in and around the public sector helping organizations and teams better understand and collaborate with their stakeholders. A certified user experience (UX) designer and analytics professional, Meghan draws on a broad toolkit to gather insights that drive impact and change in support of the public good.

Before joining BII+E, Meghan worked at the City of Toronto’s Civic Innovation Office, a Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded innovation team (i-team) dedicated to using human-centered design and data-informed decision-making to improve residents’ lives. She has also worked with organizations like Code for Canada, Laurier University’s Social Innovation and Venture Creation (SIVC), Samara Canada and MaRS Solutions Lab, not to mention spending years working with the Government of Canada on a wide range of files from electoral reform and veterans affairs to digital government and indigenous affairs.

Meghan contributes to her community in many ways, including designing and delivering the Ontario Digital Inclusion Summit, one of Ontario’s first conferences on the topic, co-founding Canada’s biggest civic tech community Civic Tech Toronto and sitting on the advisory board of the Digital Justice Lab. She also maintains a vibrant facilitation, consulting and teaching practice, including delivering the Digital Government and Civic Tech course at Ryerson University’s Chang School of Continuing Education and the Digital Leadership Program at the Institute on Governance in Ottawa.