Mike Kunicki & Emily Stremel — Transit Tracker: Breaking down barriers to transit use

Diving into the lessons learned and the journey ahead of Edmonton Transit Riders

Transit Tracker program. Adapting an open-source idea from Seattle to wider use in Edmonton to reduce the barriers to using transit, while bringing it to the forefront of people’s minds.

Bios:
Mike is a lifelong East Edmonton resident. He has had a diverse career bringing community together through non-profits, social enterprises, and over half a decade supporting elected officials. Mike joined the Edmonton Transit Riders board in 2026 to launch the Transit Tracker initiative from Seattle to Edmonton.

Emily is the current chair of Edmonton Transit Riders, a volunteer-driven non-profit advocating for an effective, user-friendly, and accessible transit system while building a community of people who are proud of the system they rely on. She believes in the importance of public transit as a method to directly counteract the neoliberal austerity politics that brought about suburbia, car-centric culture, and the related divisions of communities and alienation of the individual from the public space. She has also played too much Cities: Skylines. Besides public transit, she works full time in records and information management in the public sector and spends the remainder of her free time napping with her cat, training as a pro wrestler, and singing in choirs.

Instagram: @mikekunicki
Threads: @mikekunicki
LinkedIn: mike-kunicki

Kieran Quirke — Community Care: Considerations for grassroots-level to operational programs

With a growing awareness for the need for inclusive, safe, informed programming in the public-facing spaces of our cities, this is a talk on things to consider for having a safe and enjoyable event for all involved.Bio: Kieran has worked in policy strategy, economic development and politics, and social services. In the last five years, he has become known as the Trauma-Informed Crisis Intervention responder and De-escalation Lead for many public events in Edmonton including the International Fringe Festival, International Street Performers Festival, and Dark, and the full-time Community Care manager at Fringe Theatre in Old Strathcona.

Facebook: kieran.quirke.3

Paz Orellana-Fitzgerald — Is there anyone out there? Discovering Pathways to Antiracism in an anti-DEI World

You Need This Box began as an experiment: could a curated, hands-on experience help people engage differently with anti-racism? Six years, a pandemic, and a shifting cultural landscape later, we’re looking back at what we learned—and asking what this work can become in an increasingly anti-DEI world. This is the story of moving from “What can we do for you?” to “What can we do together?”Bio: You Need This Box is an Edmonton-based team of social innovators exploring new ways to engage with anti-racism. Through social research and development, they create experiences for people to learn, experiment, and imagine what change could look like together.

Web: youneedthisbox.ca