City’s ‘Infrastructure of Innovation’ Program Named Semifinalist in
Harvard’s 2017 Innovations in American Government Awards Competition
PHILADELPHIA – ‘Infrastructure of Innovation,’ the City’s coordinated approach to developing its capacity for innovation, is among 100 programs across the country chosen as semifinalists in this year’s Innovations in American Government Awards.
The competition is run by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. ‘Infrastructure of Innovation’ advanced from a pool of more than 500 applications from all 50 states. The program, housed within the Office of Innovation and Technology and the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, will compete to be named a Finalist in the competition and have the chance to be awarded the $100,000 grand prize in Cambridge this spring.
‘Infrastructure of Innovation” includes a network of City employees trained in the principles of innovation, who oversee an Innovation Fund and its associated projects, develop creative programming in the City’s Innovation Lab, and provide in-government consulting to help departments approach their service challenges in different ways. This strategy was developed to address a problem common to government: creative initiatives are often born of one department or individual and lack cross-departmental participation and perspective. As a result, employees lose an opportunity to scale innovative programs to a broader level and have a harder time sustaining them.
“Our innovation consulting model is intended to flip the traditional consulting role by establishing government as innovator and teacher,” said Andrew Buss, Director of Innovation Management at Office of Innovation & Technology. “We use graduates from the Innovation Academy to facilitate workshops with city departments, and even outside organizations who wish to address their institutional challenges in fresh ways. Rather than spending taxpayer dollars on external consulting, the City can frequently use its own capacity to provide this service.”
“These programs demonstrate that there are no prerequisites for doing the good work of governing,” said Stephen Goldsmith, director of the Innovations in American Government Program at the Ash Center. “Small towns and massive cities, huge federal agencies and local school districts, large budgets or no budgets at all — what makes government work best is the drive to do better, and this group proves that drive can be found anywhere.”
The Semifinalist programs represent a cross-section of jurisdictions and policy areas, and embody one of the most diverse and sophisticated groups that have advanced to this stage in the competition’s 30-year history. They were invited to complete a supplementary application last fall, answering in-depth questions about their work, the process of creating and sustaining their programs, and how they believe they can teach others to do what they do. The Ash Center expects to announce 10 programs that will be named Finalists and be invited to Cambridge to present to the Innovation Awards Program’s National Selection Committee in March, with the grand prize winners to be named in June.
Please visit the Government Innovators Network at http://innovations.harvard.edu for the full list of Semifinalists, and for more information regarding the Innovations in American Government Awards.
For more information on the competition, contact:
Daniel Harsha
Associate Director for Communications, Ash Center
617-495-4347
About the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances excellence in governance and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide. Through its research, education, international programs, and government innovations awards, the Center fosters creative and effective government problem solving and serves as a catalyst for addressing many of the most pressing needs of the world’s citizens. For more information, visit www.ash.harvard.edu.