The winner of the January Awesome Ottawa grant is Ryan Saxby Hill and the Apt613 team! Apartment613 hosts a popular blog and weekly radio show focused on great events and happenings in Ottawa. Boasting over 20,000 readers a month, the team has been exploring different ways of spurring on the growth of Ottawa as an awesome place to live.

The team has started Apartment613 Community Initiatives and will host a series of lectures and discussions that will explore themes on how to make Ottawa a better place. Topics range from creating a public library that would be the envy of the country to engaging Ottawa’s youth through city-funded skate parks. They hope to host these lectures seasonally starting in February 2012 and will disseminate each session through www.apt613.ca and on CHUO FM. The grant from Awesome Ottawa will allow the team to rent the necessary equipment and space costs for at least four lectures, allowing them to host a full year of events. We are excited to have this initiative in Ottawa and eagerly look forward to being a part of it!