GovLab Senior Fellow Announced as Secretary of Innovation and Participation for Municipality of San Pedro Garza García, Mexico

Hon. Miguel B. Treviño, Mayor-elect of San Pedro Garza García, Mexico, announced on October 16th the appointment of GovLab Senior Fellow Dinorah Cantú-Pedraza as the municipality’s new Secretary of Innovation and Participation.
Cantú-Pedraza previously led the GovLab’s City Challenges initiative. City Challenges – which combines coaching and citizen engagement to help cities co-create solutions to urban challenges with their citizens – was pioneered in San Pedro. The San Pedro City Challenges, also known as the DesafíoSP project, yielded important outcomes, including the digitization of eight new government services, an online voting space for participatory budgeting, and the launch of the pilot of the mobility program. San Pedro has legislated the City Challenges method into law as part of a new Citizen Participation bill, making this model a new paradigm for solving problems in the municipality.
“I am fully convinced that people are government’s biggest asset – if only we knew how to unlock all of their potential,” Cantú-Pedraza remarked. “I also believe democracy is in crisis, and we need to seriously experiment with new models that allow us to come together, and work together, to solve the problems we are facing and improve everyone’s quality of life.”
In her new role, Cantú-Pedraza will supervise the Citizen Engagement and Citizen Services division as well as the Innovation Department. Her appointment officially begins on October 31, 2018 per the City Council’s approval. She continues as a non-resident Fellow at the GovLab.