Students break new ground in Canada’s first Migration Data Challenge

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but give a team of motivated students one week and extraordinary things can happen. That’s what unfolded this spring during the inaugural Migration Data Challenge, a first-of-its-kind competition that brought together student teams from across Canada to turn raw migration data into real-world insight.

Hosted by Bridging Divides, a large-scale research program led by Toronto Metropolitan University, the challenge invited students from four universities—TMU, Concordia University, the University of Alberta, and the University of British Columbia—to work in interdisciplinary teams and analyze underused datasets related to immigration, housing, and access to services. The students had just seven days to find complementary datasets, analyze, and interpret the data and then present their findings to a panel of high-level judges drawn from Statistics Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the National Research Council, Toronto Metropolitan University, and Magnet. The four winning teams were awarded a total of $10,000, sponsored by the TMU Master of Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MEIE) program.

Collaboration, mentorship, and lived experience

Each team received guidance from experienced mentors working in data science, policy, migration, and civic tech. Students were placed in teams across disciplines, many of whom had never worked together—or with migration data—before. It was a deliberate choice that paid off.

“Our story is kind of funny,” said Kristen Wangyang from the UBC’s McCrispy Team. “My roommates and I found this competition on social media. Two of us don’t have a data background. At first, the dataset was super confusing, but this ended up being an incredible learning journey.”

For Alizeh Zafar, a member of Team Triple Analytics from TMU, the experience was personal. “I’m an immigrant myself, so when I saw the numbers, I could actually see faces behind them,” she said during the closing session. “It meant a lot to me. I’m excited to keep working with data like this.”

Her team used regression models, walkability indices, and spatial analysis to show how access to healthcare and education is uneven across immigration streams. “Not all immigrants experience the same Canada,” added teammate Nidhi Biswas. “We need better sidewalks, safer crossings, and affordable housing near services.”

Projects tackled a wide range of questions: How does access to transit affect employment for newcomers? How does the year of immigration impact long-term outcomes? How do spatial and social inequalities overlap across urban centres? Each answer came backed by evidence, visualization tools, and real-life connection.

“The quality of the work was truly outstanding,” said Feng Hou, Principal Researcher at Statistics Canada, who selected the datasets and helped design the challenge. “These students brought fresh eyes to problems that we, as researchers, think about every day. Their insights were creative, thoughtful, and in many cases, highly policy-relevant.”

“The best visualizations weren’t just beautiful. They were useful, clear, and rooted in storytelling,” added Isar Nejadgholi, a Senior Research Scientist at the National Research Council.

Award-winning projects with real-world impact

The top prize for Best Overall Submission went to Team JPK from the University of Alberta. Their project used publicly available datasets to explore how newcomer youth navigate education systems and services. Drawing on their own lived experience, they told a story that moved beyond statistics and into policy impact.

“We’re still in our third year, and we weren’t sure we had enough experience,” said team member Precious Ajilore. “But our mentors helped us turn our ideas into a story. And we realized our story mattered.”

Their mentorship team—including Craig Damian Smith from Pairity AI, Andrew Parkin from the Environics Institute, and Aida Radoncic from the Ontario Public Service—helped them sharpen their narrative. “What struck me most was how they connected their lived experience with the data,” Parkin said. “That kind of back and forth between personal insight and empirical evidence is so valuable.”

One of the most impressive tools for policy application came from TMU’s Nexus Navigators, who won Best Visualization. Their project explored how well local infrastructure meets the needs of immigrants by developing an interactive mapping tool that overlays immigration data with the proximity of essential services like schools, healthcare, and transit. By identifying spatial mismatches between where newcomers live and where services are located, their tool offers practical insights to improve urban planning and newcomer integration at the local level.

Other winning teams included Roots & Routes, a TMU team that took home Best Use of External Data, and TEAA, a University of Alberta team that earned the Audience Choice Award for using census data to map disparities in housing access. “It was a learning curve,” said Eniola Olomolatan from TEAA. “But it helped us realize how much data can reveal and how it can also surprise you.”

Overall, students described the experience as transformative, validating, and even healing. Andrea Santoso-Pardi from TMU’s Roots & Routes spoke about the personal impact of working with data that mirrored her own migration journey. “When my family came to Canada from Indonesia, it was hard to find housing—we were often denied because we didn’t have the right documents. This project felt healing in a way,” she said. “It showed how data could really have an impact and help ensure future planning is more equity-based.”

All participants, judges, and mentors agreed that more challenges like this, ones that encourage interdisciplinary thinking, are desperately needed. “This wasn’t just another hackathon,” said Labiba Raisa from Team Error 404: Data Not Found. “Data is people, and trying to use numbers to bust myths felt very powerful. It was a reminder that things aren’t always what they seem, and that media narratives can be misleading.”

What will you uncover?

The Migration Data Challenge will return next year, ready to reach new students and take their insights even further. “What you’ve done in just one week is astounding,” said Maggie Perzyna, lead organizer and Research Operations Manager at Bridging Divides. “If this is what you can do in seven days, I can’t wait to see what you do next.”

A full recording of the Migration Data Challenge Final Showcase is available here. (external link) 

Want to get involved in the next challenge or collaborate on student-led research? Visit torontomu.ca/bridging-divides/ to learn more.