It’s a wrap!

Civic Spark was held on August 16-17 2025 in Toronto.

Our Gratitude What Next Gallery Kind Words

Our Gratitude

To everyone who made Civic Spark possible — thank you.

Group photo from the end of Civic Spark (4:30pm on Sunday!)

Some of our wonderful volunteers 🫶

Words of thanks

To our attendees, thank you for taking a chance on something new. For many of you, this was your first Civic Spark — it was ours too. Your presence, your openness, and your willingness to connect brought it to life.

To our speakers and facilitators — thank you for your generosity, your thoughtfulness, and the sparks you lit. You gave us ideas to carry, questions to wrestle with, and permission to be honest. (Visit the speakers list)

To our conference speakers, thank you for the care you brought to preparing your sessions and sharing your stories.
To our unconference facilitators, thank you for your vulnerability and courage in opening space for real dialogue.
To our emcees and moderators, thank you for weaving the threads, grounding the flow, and helping us move through the weekend as a shared experience.

To our volunteers, thank you for holding the space with warmth, care, and clarity. You made Civic Spark feel less like a conference and more like a community.

To our supporters and sponsors, thank you for believing in a community-led vision and helping us build it from the ground up.

To our sponsors and partner organizations, your support made this gathering possible. Thank you for investing in civic connection, shared learning, and community development.
To the individuals who bought supporter-tier tickets or made quiet, anonymous contributions – Thank you for backing this vision, even (and especially) behind the scenes.

And to our organizing crew — we did it.

We dreamt big and held the shape of this whole thing until it could become a reality. We made a space where ideas could land, connections could spark, and people could feel part of something bigger.

To everyone who gave their evenings, weekends, and inboxes to this — let’s take a moment to appreciate what we’ve sparked together (and read through the kind words sent our way).

Credits

Civic Spark was built by people who care, not just in theory, but in action.

Organizing Team:

Jordan Armstrong
Alex Chen
Brian Cheung
Ben Coleman
Khasir Hean
Ilya Kreynin
Jeff Maher
Sam McGarva
Gabe Sawhney

Volunteers:

Abhay
Alaa Abbas
Luke Andrews
Mahya Ashtiani
Maanas Arora
Giacomo Beltrami
Yael Boyd
Ankitha Cheerakathil
Clara Daia Hilgenberg Daru
Jojo El Masery
Thomas Fleming
Zizheng Gao
Harriet H
Tyna Hope
Elisabeth Huang
Rock Jethwa
Gurpreet Kaur
Samina Khaliq
Chatu Kodikara
Hanifa M
Ajay Matharoo
Mariyamu
Curtis McCord
Blessing Nnabugwu
Jamie Pantling
Akhil Puri
seeley quest
Sonal Ranjit
Hannah Rosen
Chandana Sahadevan
Megan Saxby
Parastou Shahsamandi
Luke Simcoe
Amiteshwar Singhq
Srini Sivasubramanian
Julia Solórzano
Naomi Toljagic
Zohal Usmani
Ben Windeler
Helena Yu

What Next

We hope you've sparked some new ideas, relationships and aspirations 💥

If you’re looking for more you can join many of the volunteers and organizers at Civic Tech Toronto which runs weekly events year-round. Find info at civictech.ca and guild.host/civic-tech-toronto/events.

More to come on the Future of Civic Spark.