Curiko

Curiko is a community building platform that sparks moments of meaningful connection between people with and without disabilities. Through online and in-person experiences, Curiko cultivates spaces for people to relate as co-creators and co-learners.

Curiko functions as ...

A community

Curiko is a constellation of people, with and without disabilities, who share a set of values around relating based on shared passions & desires — not based on diagnoses, labels, or needs.

A platform

Curiko serves as a platform that connects people to experiences hosted by fellow community members. Anyone host experiences. Anyone can join experiences. And everyone can help the platform run – from taste testing to moderating experiences.

A prototype

Under the hood, Curiko is a living prototype, always asking critical questions and experimenting with new practice — from governance to evaluation.

What makes up Curiko?

New Roles and Power Dynamics:

Community-led experiences bring people with and without disabilities together as equals, a sharp shift from more traditional service models. By enabling anyone to act on their desires & impulses, Curiko flips the usual “client” dynamic and fosters joyful moments of connection across perceived lines of difference.

Curators and Coaches:

Behind-the-scenes, two new roles help build community leadership capacity. Curators activate community spaces and enable people to turn their curiosities & interests into shareable experiences. Coaches walk alongside community members to break through barriers to human connection — helping grow confidence, address social anxiety, and try on new narratives of self.

New Tools & Structures:

Curiko is an open tech platform for people—with and without disabilities—to try new things, connect, and create meaningful moments. There are no eligibility requirements by design. Keeping the doors wide open and welcoming the broader public is central to creating spaces of mutual exchange, inclusion, and belonging.

New ways to measure what matters

What we measure shapes how we act. Rather than just track the number of activities on the platform, we try to learn about the moments of connection the platform. We believe moments of connection, purpose and possibility are ultimately what make up a good life. These moments are valuable on their own, not just for the outcomes they produce.

Impact

We launched Curiko in 2022 — based on our learnings from an earlier prototype, Kudoz. In our first three years, here’s what we sparked:

In 2024-25, we ran a two-year evaluation process to ask: To what extent is Curiko supporting community members to live flourishing lives? Here’s what we learned:

The Type of Connection Matters

Most participants prioritize love and connection; over 80% experience Curiko as a welcoming space for meaningful relationships.

Intentional Connections Drive Value

Some seek more connections, others fewer — Curiko supports purposeful, quality connections rather than sheer network size.

Strength Lies in Growth and Community

Curiko effectively fosters connection to self, community, culture, and personal growth; the new Peer Spirituality Explorer role expands impact toward nature and the sacred.

Change Happens Across Definitions

81% of participants show strengthened factors that underpin connection, regardless of how they define it personally.

Bridging Differences Builds Capacity

Curiko builds motivation, opportunity, skill, and bridges differences. Deepening personal narratives is harder due to diverse beliefs about disability and normality, but the program creates space for exploration and perspective-shifting.

See our evaluation report

FAQ

What’s the history behind Curiko?

Curiko builds on 12+ years of social research and development.

2014
InWithForward and three disability service providers in BC, Canada came together to ask: What is the lived experience of social isolation for people with developmental disabilities? A team of designers, social scientists, and staff moved into Apartment #301 in Burnaby to learn about everyday life for people with and without disabilities.

2015
Over ten weeks, the InWithForward team met fifty neighbours with and without disabilities and generated eleven ideas for change. We saw how repetitive, unstimulating days erode relationships and well-being. To address this, we designed Kudoz, an online platform connecting people to one-on-one learning experiences.

2018
With support from Community Living BC, Vancouver Foundation, Public Health Canada, BACI, Kinsight, and posAbilities, we grew Kudoz alongside two other prototypes, Real Talk and Meraki. We designed hiring, evaluation, and technology systems, tracking who our prototypes served and who they left out, and exploring how to continually reimagine our approach.

2019
Kudoz worked for some, but not everyone in the social service system could access its benefits. We struggled to show staff, families, and participants that novelty, learning, and growth were for them. To prove value to funders, we shifted toward program-like control, unintentionally prioritizing outcomes funders valued—like employment—over what people valued, such as connectedness and relationship quality. This prompted another round of research and design.

2020
The pandemic reshaped support structures overnight. We seized the moment to launch CoMakeDo, hosting virtual group experiences, and Neighbourhood Organizer, activating local spaces to bridge community divides.

2021
Kudoz, Real Talk, Meraki, CoMakeDo, and Neighbourhood Organizer share a goal: creating conditions for flourishing lives and communities. Curiko unites these solutions in one platform, grounded in equality and authentic connection—helping people connect with themselves, their neighbors, and the world.

What pain points does Curiko address?

De-Institutionalization

Even 30 years after deinstitutionalization, many people with developmental disabilities still live institutionalized lives — their days shaped by their interactions with professionals & services, and by society’s poverty of expectations. While quality services and paid professionals are important, Curiko imagines alternative ways for people with and without disabilities to interact —spaces that nurture more two-way relationships, based less on what people need, and more what people desire and can offer.

Deeply Entrenched Inequality

People with developmental disabilities face more stigma than any other group. At the current pace, it could take 200+ years to reach equality. Few opportunities exist for mutual engagement between people with and without disabilities; interactions often come from a place of help, concern, or pity. Curiko seeks to change that.

Undervaluing What Really Matters

Service systems often value connection and contribution only as means to other ends—jobs, independence, or reduced care costs. Curiko revalues these as ends in themselves: relationships and meaningful contribution matter for their own sake.

Untapped Resources

Curiko doesn’t directly deliver support; it catalyzes community members, with and without disabilities, to design and host learning experiences for each other. This approach generates community resources, fosters mutual inclusion, and creates spaces where everyone can embrace parts of themselves that don’t fit societal norms.

What a big idea behind Curiko?

One big idea that shapes our practice is heterotopia, which basically means “other worlds.” Michel Foucault came up with it, and it’s all about creating spaces that aren’t stuck in the usual rules of what’s “normal” or “expected.” Instead of aiming for one perfect world, we can make lots of different worlds where people can show up as they are, connect across differences, and escape the usual pressures of “ordinary life” or “independence.” This is what Curiko experiences are all about — they are a place for authentic, and often quite quirky connection! Here’s an article that helped shape our thinking if you’re curious: Inclusion as heterotopia: Spaces of encounter between people with and without intellectual disability

What’s Curiko’s Theory of Change?

We call it a Theory of Action — so we do not default to the assumption that people need to change. Instead we try to act in intentional ways to create the conditions for flourishing.