Exploring Labs for Social Change – From Black Box to Glass House (Social Innovation Meetup #4)

Social innovation labs are the latest vehicles for systemic change – for disrupting the way our cities, our schools, our welfare programs, even our economic systems run. But what is in the black box called ‘the lab’? How do these ‘laboratories of hope’ really work? On this evening we will explore with ea. Marco Steinberg (Finnish Innovation Fund / Helsinki Design Lab) and Daudi Were (Ushahidi) new examples and solutions on radical change from an international perspective. There will be special focus on exchanging methodologies and approaches.

Firstly, there will be a overview of the results of the Lab2 workshop, which takes place two days prior to this evening. Lab2 is an international gathering of about 40 labs from around the world that exchange practices, methods and results with each other.

Steinberg will then introduce the Helsinki Design Lab. This Lab, an initiative of the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA, was founded with the idea to investigate, evaluate and re-design the systems that are at the basis of the Finnish society.

Daudi Were, human rights activist and technology strategist of the open source platform Ushahidi, and Mark Kamau of the iHub in Nairobi, share their experiences with the design of new technological solutions for democracy and better governance in Africa.

Panel: (in what way) can labs be a solution for the Netherlands?
A panel of domestic and foreign experts (names will follow) will go into a discussion about how the Netherlands could furnish labs to address some of our most pressing social challenges.

This evening is organized in the framework of Lab2 and SINN (Social Innovation Network Netherlands). It’s a collaboration between Hivos, Kennisland, and Pakhuis de Zwijger.

Tickets are free of charge, but if you enjoyed participating a donation (after the event of course) will be much appreciated.