Smarter Crowdsourcing: A Global Online Conference for Public Entrepreneurship Learning

The GovLab and Politics for Tomorrow will convene the first in a series of quarterly online meetings to discuss the current state of governance innovation training.

On Thursday, July 12, 2018 at 11:00 am EST / 5:00 pm CET, Professor Beth Simone Noveck, Director of The GovLab in the United States and Caroline Paulick Thiel, Co-Initiator and Strategic Design Lead at Politics for Tomorrow in Germany, will moderate an online conversation with invited experts and pioneers in the development of new curricula and educational programs for public servants.

A growing number of providers are beginning to offer courses, toolkits methods and training on different areas of innovation targeting the public sector, from human-centered design to data sciences. Examples include:

• Fundamentals of Human-Centered Design – the U.S Government’s effort to teach public servants to listen to citizens’ opinions and advice when designing policies and services.
• Digital Israel – a leadership program designed to teach public servants how to use new technology to improve the lives of the nation’s citizens.
• Solving Public Problems with Data – a free lecture series designed to teach public servants the foundation of data science so they can use it to solve problems and fulfill their public mission.

These programs, and many more like them, underscore the need for public servants to develop the mindset and skill set of a public entrepreneur.   As Beth Noveck outlined at Open State, a public entrepreneur is an innovator who, working in the public interest, knows how to use data, collective intelligence and other new methods to solve problems more effectively.

Participants will discuss:

• What is the problem you are trying to solve with your learning initiative or educational program? Why are you prioritizing it?
• What is your approach to tackling the problem within your learning initiative or educational program? Why?
• How are you creating incentives for learning and measure success?

The hope is to learn if and how new ways of working — and ways of training people in those methods — are translating into better outcomes for citizens.

If you are engaged in training public servants in innovation and problem-solving skills and interested in joining this or future sessions please contact info@thegovlab.org.

To learn more about The GovLab, and its research and initiatives in public entrepreneurship, please visit thegovlab.org.