First of all, thanks to everyone for your continued support for our Chapter. As a reminder our fiscal year ends on June 30, 2022. At that time, we will transition to a new Board, and I will step back from the Board at the end of my two-year term as President. Please join us at our June Chapter meeting where you will be introduced to our new Board.
 

Note that we still have several exciting opportunities remaining in our calendar. Join us for the upcoming members networking event led by the Membership portfolio, the events hosted by our Agile community, the opportunity to benefit from the Johnson Insurance Scholarship Program, our last Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) event and lots more.
 
Please review our updated Calendar of Events where you will find many opportunities to network and further your development. Please sign-up and participate. If you haven't already done so, please sign up for our Weekly Scope Newsletter to inform you of our upcoming events and activities.

Chapter Guest Pass

The Chapter Guest Pass Plus program last year was a huge success. We’ve got a few annual Chapter memberships available for anyone who has their PMI Global membership and would like to try out our Toronto Chapter. If you know anyone interested in taking advantage of this free offer, please email info@pmitoronto.ca. Include your name and PMI number, and the pass is yours! Include "Chapter Guest Pass" in the subject line.

Johnson Insurance Scholarship Program

The 2022 Johnson Scholarship Program is open for applications from April 28, 2022, until July 28, 2022. Our partner @WeAreJohnson is proud to offer 50 scholarship opportunities, valued at $1000 each, to eligible applicants.

Since 2003, PMIT has been a partner with Johnson Insurance. They have awarded over 1,500 Scholarships valued at more than $1 million since 1998. This year, they plan to offer 50 scholarships worth $1,000 each to students who fall into one of the categories mentioned below:

If you, your parent/guardian, or grandparent have a:

• Home or car insurance policy through Johnson, or
• MEDOC travel insurance policy, or
• Group benefits plan (such as health, dental, or life insurance) through Johnson Insurance
• Member or employee of a Johnson recognized group (policy not required)

If you are not currently a customer of Johnson Insurance, consider requesting a quote today.

PMIT's Agile Community

Cristiane Xavier and her team continue to perform great work in the Agile community on behalf of our Chapter. Their next session is Choosing the Right Agile Process for Your Culture and Goals, on Wednesday, June 8, 2022, at 6:30 pm. We also invite you to join our PMIT Agile Community LinkedIn group to collaborate with like-minded professionals. 

Playbook for Project Management in Data Science (DS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Projects

Please mark your calendars for June 25, 2022, from 9:30 to 11:00 am for a collaborative event with the PMILOC on behalf of both our Chapters. Many of you may be working or considering working on projects in the DS and AI space. PMI India collaborated with NASSCOM Center of Excellence to create the Playbook for Project Management in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Projects, which presents a framework that recommends resources that organizations can use to build capability and a best practices toolkit for different DS/AI projects. Take a moment to watch this video from PMI Global, and download this informative playbook.

PMIT's Coronavirus (COVID-19) Status

We are slowly going back to holding in-person events. However, we need to approach this transition with the appropriate duty of care. Thanks to the team at Bond for developing this wording for us. As we commence the transition to in-person events, we must be mindful that the COVID-19 virus and its many variants are still present. As such, we should continue to follow the guidance of our health professionals.

The PMI Toronto Chapter is following public health guidelines concerning COVID-19. Although individuals are no longer mandated to wear a mask, the Toronto Medical Officer of Health encourages continued use of the best quality mask you have access to and make sure it fits well. We are asking that attendees respect each other's individual choices in deciding to wear a mask or not. If you're sick or have COVID-19 symptoms—no matter how mild—please stay home and isolate yourself to help reduce the spread of infection.

PMI Hours of Impact

I want to commend Tracy Dyba, Director, Membership, for leading by example in her work in assisting families settle in to Romania and Slovakia from Ukraine. She certainly lives and breathes the 'Hours of Impact.' What are your hours of impact? Feel free to share them here: https://www.pmi.org/hours-for-impact. For those of you who, like Tracy, want to support Ukraine, please visit this PMI Global site.

PMI Global Virtual Experience Series – Reunite and Reemerge Together!
 

Please join PMI Global on Thursday, June 9, 2022 for the next Virtual Experience Series (VES). It is free for all PMI members. 

Upcoming Authorized Training Partner (ATP) Certification Courses

Regarding ATP, the Board of Directors made a decision that after the completion of the PMP Exam Prep course (held in February), the Chapter will no longer be producing or facilitating the following courses:

• PMP Exam Prep
• PMP Boot Camp
• DASM Certification Course
• DASSM Certification Course

PMI Toronto will continue to deliver the following courses, and we hope that you will continue to align with us. We will continue to offer the following:

• CAPM Exam Prep
• PBA Exam Prep (self-directed) - Custom Group Training Courses

Please check out our Certification Course Calendar for the upcoming certification courses or send an email to atpsupport@pmitoronto.ca. 

Academia + Branches and Communities (BC) Portfolios

Claire Dobbin successfully led two portfolios for the year, as Director of Branches and Communities (BC) and the Academia portfolio. She continued to work with Vassilis Anastasiadis, VP Branches and Communities, the Chairs, Vice Chairs, and their teams. We encourage you to check out our Communities page. You may find a community of interest, and if not, please connect with Claire or Vassilis directly. The most recent BC event was the GTIS Branch - Agile Transformation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly event.

Sergio Rodrigues, VP Academia, and his team provided good support to schools and to the Ontario Project Management Competition (OPMC). On the Academia side, they held the Learn About PMI, Certifications, and the Toronto Chapter! Information sessions like the one held on May 18, 2022. If you are interested in engaging with students by sharing your experiences, see the VRMS posted volunteer opportunities or email the volunteer team at volunteers@pmitoronto.ca. Huge congratulations to the Durham College's Team Achievers who won this year's OPMC competition.

Canadian Online Events—Share Your Success Story

Karthik Srinivasan, Project Lead, Quarterly Canadian Online Events, leads this initiative. We commenced outreach to the other 17 Canadian Chapters and held five events since December. If you missed an event, please make sure to read the recaps on our blog site. The events held this year included (from most recent):

1. June 2: Simon Kalechstein: Innovations @IBM: A Partnership Approach
2. May 12: Ravi Nookala: President & CEO @ Glentel Inc: Project Management in Retail: The Convergence of Telecom and Retail Industries
3. March 10: Kathleen Martin: Executive, Bio-Diversity Initiatives: Canadian Sea Turtle Network "Biodiversity"
4. January 6: Kristian Gravelle: Former VP Astra Zeneca: Data Democratization Transformation Program with a Pharma Company
5. December 2: Nicolai Salcedo: Fireside Chat with CIO Walmart

Career Development Portfolio

Latif Hassanzay is the Director responsible for the Career Development portfolio. He is accountable for our mentoring programs, the Career Accelerator Program (CAP) led by Lorenzo Gutierrez, VP, Career Development and the Professional Mentoring Program led by Chirag Shah. We thank them for the fantastic work on our mentoring programs for the year. We look forward to the future of these programs because they provide fantastic member value. The programs are always looking for more mentors so please reach out to the team if you have any questions.

Communications

Dennis Abuan, Director of Communications and our ATP Operations and Sandy Matos, Vice President, Creative Director and Content Lead, Communications, work with their teams to deliver excellent communication outputs with the Weekly Scope, blogs, our social media platforms, and other communications for our Chapter. These resources are your inside look into upcoming events from our Chapter portfolios and opportunities available through our collaborating Chapter partners and PMI Global.

Please continue visiting our social media platforms to remain updated on our Chapter's events and share these details with your contacts:

• LinkedIn 
• Twitter   
• Instagram   
• Facebook 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Committee

Christine Blair, DEI Committee Chair, Tiffany Joseph, DEI Committee Deputy Chair, and their team will continue their work on DE&I this year. Please add a placeholder in your calendars for the following Chapter meeting: 

• Pride Month - June 28, 2022

We will continue our cross-chapter collaboration discussions with the Chapters below and PMI Global. These Chapters will be involved with some of our events. 

• PMI Dallas Chapter
• PMI Delaware Valley Chapter
• PMI New Jersey Chapter
• PMI Lakeshore Chapter
• PMI Ottawa Valley Outaouais
• PMI Rochester Chapter

 We are also collaborating with additional PMI Chapters on Women in Project Management (WIP). These Chapters include: 

• PMI Turkey
• PMI UK
• PMI Washington DC Chapter
• PMI Finland
• PMI Rwanda

I am grateful for the support of my friends, colleagues, and network contacts at my work, TD Bank, and with other volunteer organizations such as BlackNorth Initiative, Black Professionals in Technology Network (BPTN), and the Canadian Association of Urban Financial Professionals (CAUFP).

Finance 

Michael Becker, Director of Finance, supports our Chapter in our finances. We will continue using digital tools like Telpay to manage our Chapter's finances on behalf of our members, volunteers, partners, and vendors. Michael has also been our Secretary-Treasurer (ST) and supports the pilot effort of our new PMIT Agile Community. As ST, Michael continues to work with Adetutu Akinyemi and Jose Lima to review and update the Chapter's Bylaws. They will share more details in the coming months.
 

Membership

Tracy Dyba is the Director responsible for the Membership portfolio and works with Zhaleh Malek, VP, Membership. They, along with their team, led impactful focus groups to gain input from various groups of our members. The feedback from these sessions will be valuable to the next Board as the development plans for the new fiscal year. Please mark your calendars for the next New Member Orientation & Networking on Thursday, June 9, 2022, at 7:00 pm. This event will provide an excellent opportunity to meet, learn from and collaborate with PMIT's Board, volunteers, seasoned project managers, and other professionals.

Ontario Project Management Competition (OPMC)

The OPMC team performed well in delivering on the competition. In this article, Durham College Project Management students win Ontario Project Management Competition you may learn more about this year's winners. We now look forward to next year's competition.

Professional Development

Ashley Smith, Director of Professional Development (PD), Hitomi Mochizuki, Chair, PD Portfolio, and Kelly Verberne, Project Coordinator, PD Portfolio, ensured effortless events, from communicating with speakers to creating events slides and setting up avenues for members to ask questions. We look forward to more great Chapter meetings and webinars in the future. Do you have a project you would like to share with our members? If so, we want to hear your story and share it with our members! Please submit your speaking proposal and indicate it in the online Speaker Proposal Form.

Technology and Analytics Portfolio

Bernie Crawford, Director of Technology and Analytics (TA), Raj Kanneelathu, VP of Technology, and their team continued to provide significant support to our Chapter. We appreciate their efforts in providing stable and secure platforms as we continue to navigate our events virtually.

Volunteer Opportunities + Affiliate Program

Iain Shao, Director of Volunteers and Pradeep Bonnell, VP, Volunteers, continue to perform excellent work with our volunteers. They held informative New Volunteer Orientation (NVO) virtual events and shared detailed monthly newsletters. They are also preparing for our Volunteer Recognition and Celebration Night to end our fiscal year.

If you or someone you know would be interested in volunteering with our Chapter we would be honoured to have you on our teams. Here are the key steps to volunteer:

1. Visit the Volunteer Relationship Management System (VRMS) tool at https://vrms.pmi.org/.
2. Create a volunteer profile.
3. Upload resume.
4. Search and apply for volunteer opportunities in VRMS.
5. If you did not find a position that fits your qualifications or have questions, you could email the volunteer team at volunteers@pmitoronto.ca.

Iain also took responsibility for the Chapter's Affiliate Program. For more information on our Affiliate Program, please visit our website at https://www.pmitoronto.ca/affiliate.

Youth and Social Impact Committee

I am thankful to our co-chairs, Barb Pepin and Joseph Fernandes, for building our youth team. They continue to build relationships with their PMI contacts locally and globally. Also, they are building their local contacts through elementary and high schools and with organizations like Canadian Multicultural Inventors Museum (CMIM). Their goal is to develop programs and workshops to support our youth stakeholders within elementary and high schools and organizations.
  
Thank you for being engaged with our Chapter this fiscal year and for the past two years of my presidency. Please seek opportunities to engage with us in the upcoming fiscal year. Feel free to reach out and do please join our events. All the best to you and your loved ones.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Jeffrey Thompson DBA, PMP, DASSM, CSM

PMI Toronto Chapter President