The difficulties of what it takes to drive innovation from within government are manifold and rooted in institutional culture. Deputy Chief of NYC Department of Education’s iZONE , Seth Schoenfeld, provides insights into the various ways social and political problems can be reframed as design problems from a government’s perspective.
(New) Public Goods: Labs, Practices and Public, organized by Parsons DESIS Lab in May of 2014, was a remarkable convening of lab practitioners, designers, social scientists, researchers and policy officials to discuss the various projects and practices of public innovation, sketching out the details of the emerging field of labs.
Faced with a growing set of complex and interrelated challenges that are public in nature, institutions are developing new approaches to enabling social change. Among the most effective approaches have been labs, dedicated and experimental places for interdisciplinary teams to innovate in the public realm. This event explored in-depth how these approaches play out in reality, offering a chance for critical reflection and next steps.
