2025-03-13

March 13 (the second Thursday of the month) is the 129th meeting for Systems Thinking Ontario. This will be an online session. The registration is at: https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/wJaVmBFKS9Ct6QDe1N8kfg 

What Can Systems Thinkers Learn from Emergency Management

Living in a “polycrisis” time can be characterized by an increasing rate, severity, and scale of emergencies. Viruses, war, extreme weather – societies today are facing an increasingly unstable and unpredictable landscape.

It’s with this in mind we ask ourselves what insights does a systems-oriented view of emergency management offer us? How might this perspective better prepare us in both a material and cognitive sense for the risks we face?

We’ll explore this connection with Carly Benson and Donna Dupont, who both have experience in the fields of emergency management, disaster recovery, and resilience. We’ll gather insights and reflections on the connections between these topics and systems thinking.


Co-Discussants

Carly Benson

Carly Benson is an accomplished emergency management professional with over a decade of experience in emergency management practice and policy in Canada. She has worked directly with communities such as High River and Fort McMurray, Alberta, to respond to and recover from devastating disasters, with a focus on improving resiliency and reducing future risk. In her current role, Carly works on disaster risk reduction policy for the Government of Canada, applying systems thinking to how the federal government creates incentives for and funds disaster response and recovery. Most recently, Carly played a pivotal role in the review and redesign of Canada’s disaster financial assistance program (which is more than 50 years old), an initiative that has won several awards. 

Carly holds a Master of Arts in Disaster and Emergency Management and a Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. She teaches emergency management courses at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and is also a volunteer editor for HazNet magazine, a publication that spotlights disaster risk reduction efforts in Canada.


Donna Dupont

Donna Dupont is an award-winning designer, futurist, and the Founder of Purple Compass. With over 25 years of experience collaborating with leaders in healthcare, public safety, defense, and security, she helps organizations develop future literacy skills to navigate uncertainty and lead change in today’s complex world. Donna integrates theory and practice to enhance anticipatory and adaptive capabilities, and strategic intelligence to drive impactful future policy and strategy.

A former healthcare professional, provincial policy advisor, and emergency manager, Donna is deeply passionate about applying foresight to strengthen decision-making, mitigate future risks, enhance preparedness and adaptive capacity. Her work empowers organizations to seize opportunities for innovation, transformation, and resilience.

Donna’s unique approach combines systems thinking and strategic foresight, leveraging both quantitative and qualitative insights to identify patterns and anticipate change over time. Her extensive portfolio includes advancing insights on climate-risk, international development, environmental security, health security, law enforcement, space sector and national security.

Donna has received seven government awards for excellence in policy, strategy, and partner relations. Her futures research, Anticipation in Emergency Management (2020), earned awards from the Canadian Defence and Security Network and the Association of Professional Futurists. Donna holds a Master of Design in Strategic Foresight & Innovation from OCAD University. She is a board member for the Canadian Journal of Emergency Management and the Archipelago of Design. 

Venue & Registration

Suggested pre-readings / audio / video

Agenda

Post-meeting artifacts

Bloggers are encouraged to write about their learning and experiences at the meeting. Links will be added to this page.