Alex Hook reflects on NESTA's recent Innovation for Sustainability event and the questions that arose around the future of sustainable innovation in the UK.
Are we able to innovate systemically and freely on the Internet? Some individuals are now online for more of the day than off; is the Internet empowering individuals, and what experiences, value, behaviours, purpose and outcomes is it creating?
As part of our work with Cabinet Office on increasing giving, Nesta is working with a range of innovative projects using online collaboration to benefit communities. Solar Schools is one of the crowdfunding projects we've been working with, and the first to be featured in this mini blog series.
The issues affecting local communities today are many and varied; local budget cuts, youth unemployment, flooding, and the challenges of an aging society to name just a few. They are particularly difficult to address because they require multiple bodies to change their own practices and systems; they also demand personal behaviour change from many individuals. In fact, they represent the very type of systemic challenges that our current local systems are not really set up to deal with effectivel
The following is an extract from the blog posted on The Guardian on 2 May 2012.
I'm very pleased to share a new publication with you today which has been created to showcase what we're learning through working with the 17 Neighbourhood Challenge projects.
The projects all came together at a workshop event in the Autumn which was focused around learning. You can see some photos of the day below; it took place in Birmingham at Fazeley studios which was a great space to work in as it gave us plenty of room to work in small groups as well as sharing news and socialising over tea breaks.
Things have been very busy for everyone over the last few months since Neighbourhood Challenge kicked off.
It was great to see the Neighbourhood Challenge projects taking part in the Manchester workshop we held last week.
NESTA is abuzz with activity this morning because the Neighbourhood Challenge projects are being announced today!
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