ROI announces recruitment for the 2023 Rural Change Makers Program

Jun 05, 2023

GUELPH, ON, – The Rural Ontario Institute (ROI) is pleased to announce the opening of recruitment for the 2023 Rural Change Makers (RCM) program with the support of regional partners: Timmins Youth Wellness Hub (YWH-Timmins), and Opiikapawiin Services LP (OSLP). The program welcomes engaged young leaders in rural and northern Ontario eager to mobilize action around issues important to their communities.

“Timmins Youth Wellness Hub is excited to encourage youth from our community, aged 18-25 years old to apply to the Rural Change Maker Program. It is a great opportunity to meet other like-minded young people interested in honing their leadership abilities and making a difference in their community,” said Anne Vincent, Executive Director of the Timmins Youth Wellness Hub.

“It will be exciting to see our youth from Wataynikaneyap partner communities advance their skills, knowledge and gifts through leadership roles and community projects. The path they choose on their shared leadership journey will help build positive outcomes for the future,” said Laura Calmwind, Training Program Manager of Opiikapawiin Services LP (OSLP).

Applications for the 2023 RCM program open June 5th, 2023, with the selection process commencing in July 2023 when up to 36 motivated young adults will be selected to join the experience. These leaders will participate in a series of developmental training sessions and come together for experiential gatherings, complete self-assessments, form planning committees for local activities, a Youth Summit, and lead community initiatives based on a local priority. 

“We are excited to welcome up to 36 emerging rural leaders into the program and discover the many unique and innovative approaches they will surely bring to community economic development and resiliency in rural communities,” says Ellen Sinclair, Executive Director, Rural Ontario Institute.

“Participants of ROI’s youth leadership programs do incredible things both in their communities and lives with many past participants taking on leadership roles in local or provincial government, businesses and local community organizations,” says Melanie Bidiuk, ROI Communications Manager and RCM Program Coordinator. “Rural Change Makers are the leaders of tomorrow and this initiative prepares them for those future challenges.”

For more information on the RCM program and how to apply visit https://www.ruralontarioinstitute.ca/changemakers. The deadline for applications is July 15, 2023.

Support for the 2023 Rural Change Makers program has been generously provided in part by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Sarnia Lambton Economic Partnership.

Source : Rural Ontario Institute

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.