It’s called a Hubbbub, an event where dozens of post-secondary students are showcasing pilot projects they have been working on with city staff in a new initiative called CityStudio London.

“Who wouldn’t want young people coming into their midst sharing their inspiration and preparing the way for all of us? Asks Brescia University College Vice Principal Lauretta Frederking.

Around 120 students from Brescia, Fanshawe College, Huron University College, King's University College and Western University have been paired up with city staff from different departments to co-create pilot projects that identify and address current municipal challenges.

“It’s a very exciting and a fresh way of thinking. It gets city staff who are working with the students to get a new perceptive in things,” says Chris Green, manager of Economic Partnerships with the City of London.

The initiative also gives students a chance to experience working on real city problems and solutions.

Mischa Schlemmer from CityStudio London adds, “I think this piece of experimental learning is key, the idea of revolutionizing the future of education and post secondary education around job skills and project based thinking.”

There are 10 pilot projects being presented at the Hubbub event. One of them being a look London’s history of mental health challenges.

Huron University College student, Victoria Burnett, explains, “Especially as students we are faced with our own mental health challenges on a daily basis, whether it be our own mental health or that of our friends. And so the idea that mental health is still stigmatized, not just in an academic sense but in a cultural sense, we want to show that these ideas are still going on.”

Burnett says through studying historical treatments and ideologies of mental health the students have created a walking tour called The Incurables, which they hope brings the problem to light and encourages solution-based thinking.

“Change is needed and is needed a lot sooner than we are planning currently, and we need to realize this is a problem we can’t just keep ignoring.”

More information about the 10 pilot projects can be found on the CityStudio London website.