In Europe, the culture is not so much a start-up culture, but more like a co-creation culture with different parts of society – cities, developers, organisations and civil society in general.  And things may look… and maybe are!… a little bit slower as a result of this approach, but it’s a different way.”

About Esteve Almirall

Esteve Almirall serves as Associate Professor in Esade Business Schoool and UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) focusing his research on Innovation and Innovation Management where he has more than 30 publications on the field. His work has been referenced in HBR and he is a frequent speaker in conferences around Innovation, Smart Cities, Living Labs and Open Data/Gov.

His background is a mix of Management Science (PhD) and Computer Science (MSc, MRes). Esteve is also highly involved in European Projects and EU organizations being Council Member of the ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs) and coordinating/participating in some EU projects on Innovation and Smart Cities, such as Open Cities and Commons for Europe.

About Carles Ferreiro

Carles is the CEO of dotopen, a digital enterprise focused on open innovation particularly within cities.

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Episode links and resources

• Commons4EU website
• ESADE
• dotopen

60-second snapshots

On a co-creation approach:

On the entrepreneur as a change agent for civic innovation:

Commons4EU – explaining Code for Europe and BuB for Europe initiatives through their fellows

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• Twitter hashtags: #commons4eu #opengov #opendata

Damian Thorman, National Program Director, shares some insights from the KF Tech for Engagement initiative so far, and highlights some of the key focus areas for collaboration in the future.

In the beginning…there was a sense of experimenting – throw anything out there and see what sticks.  I think today we’re facing a different question.  We’ve got a lot of tools…the question today is how do you take these tools and get them adopted, and how do we articulate the value?

About Damian Thorman

Damian Thorman joined Knight Foundation in 2007 as National Program Director. The National Program supports innovative ideas and leadership with the potential to drive transformative change nationally and in Knight’s resident communities. He helps develop new grant opportunities at a national level that target systemic change within the framework of informed, engaged communities.

Thorman most recently served as assistant prosecuting attorney of the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office in Kansas City, Mo. He founded and ran the Thorman Strategy Group, a consulting practice that assisted foundations, nonprofits and for-profit organizations from 2002 to 2005. He served as adjunct political science professor at Avila College in Kansas City, Mo. Thorman was the director of public affairs and policy at the Ewing Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City from 1994 to 2002. In Washington, D.C., he served as assistant director at the American Academy of Pediatrics, professional staff member of the House Education and Labor Committee, and congressional aide to then-U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson. He also served a brief stint as a reporter for the National Catholic Reporter in Los Angeles.

He has a law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a MBA from Rockhurst University.

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Episode links and resources

• Knight Foundation
• Tech for Engagement initiative
• Tech for Engagement summit
• Report: Digital Citizenship: Exploring the Field of Tech for Engagement
• Technology for Engagement Manifesto
• Code for America
• Change by us

Accelerating Democracy: Tech for Engagement from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

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• Twitter hashtag: #tech4engage

Building a culture of collaboration and participation is a key ingredient to making innovative programs work in cities.

Mark Headd talks about his time with Code for America as their Head of Government Relations, and shares some of the emergent learnings from the intersection between the various elements of CfA’s program – the cities, the fellows, the brigade, the commons and now the start-ups.

“The most important thing that cities can do to keep pushing innovation in their cities is to bring in those people closest to them that are products of their own innovation.”

About Mark Headd

Mark has been the Director of Government Relations for Code for America since April 2012, as well as being a writer, speaker and thought leader on communication technologies and open government. He is a civic hacking veteran and a keen builder of civic software.

Mark has also just been appointed the City of Philadelphia’s first Chief Data Officer.

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Episode links and resources

• • Code for America
    • Brigade
    • Commons
    • Engagement Commons
    • Accelerator
    • Fellows
    • Cities
  • Young Rewired State
  • Sheltr

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• Tags: #cfa #civic #innovation

In a fun and inspiring chat, Markus and Adam talk about stages of service rapid prototyping, their plans for city-specific Jams and how this pilot inititaive will see small teams meet at multiple locations around the world, working for 48 hours on building innovative approaches and solutions towards challenges faced by the public sector.

“One of our basic work philosophies is the theatrical working rule of ‘doing, not talking’ – and this fit well with the idea of the Jam.”

About Adam Lawrence and Markus Hormeß

Adam and Markus run WorkPlayExperience, a German-based service design agency.  Markus is German with a background in theoretical physics and process design; Adam is British and has a background in psychology, marketing and theater.

Adam Lawrence is a professional comedian, business consultant and writer with a background in psychology and the automotive industry. For years he has been using expertise gained in the world of theatre and film to help companies influence their customers.

Markus Hormeß is a service designer and organisational consultant. For years, the qualified scientist has worked in the engineering, banking and IT fields, helping companies to improve complex services and to make them more customer friendly.

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Episode links and resources

• GovJam 2012
• Global Service Jam
• Work.Play.Experience
• Australian Government innovation space
• Australian Innovation in Public Sector Week

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  @GSJam
  @markusedgar
  @adamstjohn
• Tags: #innovationweek #GovJam #servicedesign

Nick Grossman joins Gov20 Radio for a conversation about civic innovation, including the latest from Civic Commons and how to communicate the benefits of tech-enabled civic transformation to leaders as well as the tech community.

About Nick Grossman

Nick is the most recent Executive Director of Civic Commons, a visiting scholar at the MIT Media Lab in the Center for Civic Media, and an advisor to Code for America.  He’s also been involved with OpenPlans building open technologies for cities and advancing urban and technical policy issues.

Projects that Nick has worked on include Open311, MTA Bus Time, OpenBlock, OpenTripPlanner, TransportationCamp,  Streetsblog, Streetfilms and GothamSchools.

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Episode links and resources

• The Civic Commons organisation
• Open Plans agency
• Code for America website

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• Tags: #civic #innovation

Civic innovator and hackfest vetern Mark Headd joins Gov20 Radio for an in-depth conversation about mobilizing and sustaining civic innovation: hacking, start-ups and what Governments can do to encourage local action.

In 2011, you really started to see independently-organized events taking place, where there were groups of civic-ly-minded hackers in these cities saying ‘We want to do something to give back to our cities.’

About Mark Headd

Mark is a writer, speaker and thought leader on communication technologies and open government. He currently works as a Developer Evangelist for Voxeo Labs. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and is a former adjunct instructor at the University of Delaware teaching a course in electronic government.

He served for three years as the chief policy and budget advisor for the State of Delaware’s Department of Technology and Information. He has also served as Director of the Delaware Government Information Center and as Technology Adviser to former Delaware Governor Thomas Carper.

Mark has built open government applications for the District of Columbia, the Sunlight Foundation, the New York State Senate, and the cities of New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

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Episode links and resources

• Civic hacking events in Baltimore and Philadelphia
• Mark’s Civic Innovations blog

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• People and organisations:
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• Tags: #civic #innovation