CoLab Fellows' Projects
CoLab Fellows are leaders in community-level social justice innovation from around the world. Our Fellows bring knowledge and experience from extraordinary practice in marginalized communities to share with the MIT community and draw on the Institute's knowledge and resource base to support their work.
Fellows come to CoLab to advance a specific project connected with CoLab's mission. We provide a learning community to exchange ideas with other community innovators, faculty and community partners; facilitate links into resources in the wider MIT community and offer working space for Fellows to advance their projects, including through opportunities to audit courses. With MIT faculty, CoLab Fellows, community partners and others, CoLab promotes scholarship of engagement and knowledge sharing between the academy and innovative community practitioners. At the culmination of the Fellowship, each fellow produces a synthesis of her/his learning, in a form of her/his choosing, that can be shared with other fellows, MIT, and the larger social justice community.
CoLab 2009-2010 Fellows:
Green Hub
A project to help focus on a missing element in the discussion of environmental sustainability: the interrelated social and economic issues--poverty-reduction, finance, employment, education and beyond — necessary to bring about comprehensive and equitable green transformation in cities.
Becky Buell will work to advance the concept of the Green Hub, a project to help focus on a missing element in the discussion of environmental sustainability: the interrelated social and economic issues--poverty-reduction, finance, employment, education and beyond — necessary to bring about comprehensive and equitable green transformation in cities.
To that end Becky will:
- Work with faculty to develop and frame the "Green Hub".
- Develop and coordinate an action plan for 2-year start up stage.
- Build the partnership model with 5-6 external agencies, representing multiple sectors and social organizations representing/working with marginal communities, who will collectively carry forward the vision and agenda of the Hub.
- Build relationships with 3-4 cities in the southern Hemisphere as key participants in the Hub's activities and networks.
- Develop links with the City of London, and UK organizations, businesses and universities working on transition to low carbon futures.
- Support medium term fundraising for beyond Year 2, and develop a long-term business model for financial sustainability.
At the culmination of the Fellowship, Becky will produce a synthesis of her learning to be shared with other fellows, MIT, and the larger social justice community.
Methodology for Promoting Social Innovation
Sebastiao Mendoca Ferreira is developing a tool for helping innovative groups to reconstruct their experience, identify their innovations and map the innovative processes they have been using.
The method was created for people working with innovative groups who seek to strengthen their capacities. It was developed based on conceptual research and direct experience with innovative groups in El Salvador. Currently the method is being improved as a shared effort of CoLab and CARE . In the next 3 to 4 months the method will be available to people interested in social innovation.
Salvadorian Knowledge Fairs
Sebastiao Mendoca Ferreira is working to identify and promote innovative groups in El Salvador.
It started in 2005 as a partnership between the Salvadorian Government, UNDP, CARE, MIT, and currently has been extended to GTZ and Plan International. The first Knowledge Fair took place in October 2006, presenting 23 innovative groups. Its success spurred the Salvadorian Government to declare it public policy and to invite the alliance to organize the next fair in October 2008. CoLab's role in this alliance is to develop cognitive tools, to train the facilitators for working in the field and to monitor the process of identification and support to innovative groups.
Reconstructing Peru
A team of DUSP faculty and CoLab is working with local partners to respond to the earthquake that devastated the south coast of Peru.
This project is an alliance between MIT and the Universidad del Pacífico, in Peru, to combine capacities and resources around three main objectives: (1) Supporting reconstruction of Tambo de Mora, in the province of Chincha, (2) Developing a plan for the Region of Ica with an interactive methodology, and (3) Supporting a long term commitment of both universities for capacity building for improving governance and promoting competitiveness in Peru. This work involves MIT faculty across diverse fields, including planning and architecture, and also graduate and undergraduate students.
Transfer of methodology to IADB
The Critical Moments Reflection Methodology, CMRM, was developed by Ceasar McDowell, former CoLab Director. CoLab is currently working with the Knowledge and Learning Department, KLD, of the Inter American Development Bank (IADB) to develop its capacity to use the methodology. CoLab did a conceptual introduction and a practical exercise with the staff of the KLD/IADB, and developed pedagogical materials for IADB to apply the CMRM. Currently KLD/IADB is using the method with its teams and later plan to evaluate the experience with the team of CoLab.
Microfinance
After working for 13 years with many microfinance institutions, mostly in Latin America, Sebastiao Mendoca Ferreira developed a book on strategic planning. The book was published by the Swiss Agency, COSUDE, in 2007.
ELIAS
Judith leads the ELIAS Project 2.0 and facilitates ELIAS Indonesia (IDEAS) on behalf of CoLab, one of the co-hosts of ELIAS.
ELIAS is a global cross-sector network of high-potential leaders and their institutions working collectively to generate new ideas, prototypes and ventures that address the interconnected business, social, environmental, political, and cultural challenges now emerging in our world. IDEAS is an ELIAS program specifically adapted to the East Asian regional context. To advance the work of an ongoing Oxfam GB/Presencing Institute partnership whose purpose is to define innovative ways to shift systemic undercurrents that fuel the pandemic using a variety of instrumentalities including the Trust for Collective Action Against HIV and AIDS in Zambia, It is hoped that the learning from this project can be replicated and/or scaled in many other parts of the world towards lasting change regarding complex, multidimensional issues such as HIV and AIDS.
As a part of her fellowship, Judith reflects on, studies and documents the process and impact of using presencing social technology in the ELIAS and Zambia Initiative and in other Presencing Institute Initiatives.
It is hoped that through this fellowship the relationship between the Presencing Institute and CoIL will be strengthened and made more coherent.
At the culmination of her Fellowship, Judith will produce a synthesis of her learning, to be shared with other fellows, MIT, and the larger social justice community.
Dr. Katrin Kaeufer leads an action research initiative on investigating the leverage points for moving the economic system towards a regenerative economy titled "Transformation towards a Regenerative Economy."
Two guiding questions for this research work are:
- How do taken-for-granted assumptions of conventional economic thought prevent us from seeing and exploring the root issues of the current economic crisis?
- How can we shape a more sustainable and just economic system in a more intentional way?
This initiative includes five core activities:
- Interviews with thought leaders and pioneers on issues related to achieving profound social and economic change;
- Roundtable conversations with a larger circle of thought leaders and pioneers about how to develop a new intellectual, spiritual, and practical platform for advancing the shift from the current form of capitalism ("2.0") to a regenerative economy ("3.0");
- Case studies of innovative financial institutions worldwide that seek positive social and economic change;
- Strategic cross-institutional initiatives linking companies and institutions that are pursuing a green, conscious, and regenerative economy;
- Launch of a Web-based global platform and community of practice that uses the practical outcomes of the above five activities as input for hosting online conversations.
As part of this initiative Katrin conducts case studies on banking institutions that combine and cross-leverage social, ecological, and financial return in their communities. The purpose of the case studies is to identify the innovative financial practices and use the findings as a starting point for discussing the larger systemic changes that would be necessary to scale up sustainability-based banking.
Uyen Le's CoLab Fellowship is focused on programming for the Leveraging the Stimulus (LTS) program. In her most recent completed project, Uyen co-managed a team of Master in City Planning students who were working directly with community-based organizations and local municipalities in order to help these communities locate and qualify for appropriate stimulus funds. Uyen continues to engage with the LTS program through analyzing and evaluating research and reflections from the summer, and through supporting the development of publications on lessons learned from the LTS project.
Through the CoLab, Uyen is also working as the research director and Emerald Cities Partnership co-facilitator for the California Construction Academy (CCA) in Los Angeles. Her focus is on topics related to green jobs and energy efficiency building retrofits. In this role, she collects and analyzes prominent trends and challenges in the energy efficiency retrofits market, and also identifies stimulus-related funding opportunities for the CCA. In addition, Uyen provides technical assistance, strategic planning, and partnership development to the CCA as it co-convenes the Emerald Cities Partnership in Los Angeles.
International Leadership
Hinrich's work ncludes, among other things, the development of prototypes on different aspects of climate change relevant to each participant's institution/organization. Prototype realization should take place in small trisectoral working groups.
The purpose of Hinrich's fellowship is:
- to design and contribute to the implementation of international leadership programs such as the Climate Leadership Program (2009-2011) as a pilot program for
- bringing together professional expertise from the north and the south on the issues of climate protection and adaptation to climate change,
- creating networking possibilities for 60 leaders from emerging powers (China, India, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa),
- applying and teaching innovative leadership tools inspired by Otto Scharmer's Theory U (www.theoryu.com) to facilitate the development of innovative solutions confronting climate change.
The leadership programs will include the development of prototypes on different aspects of climate change relevant to each participant's institution/organization. Prototype realization should take place in small trisectoral working groups.
- to co-create with international participants of leadership programs a leadership concept as an attitude and approach to create innovative solutions and answers to today's and future challenges
- to co-create, test and refine reflection methods and perception techniques using presencing social technology in the context of the above mentioned leadership programs
- to reflect on, study and document key learnings and relate them to other CoLab programs like the Green Hub
At the culmination of his Fellowship, Hinrich will produce a synthesis of his learning to be shared with other fellows, MIT, and the larger social justice community.
Catherine Tumber is writing a book tentatively titled Small, Green, and Good: The Rebirth of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon Future, forthcoming from MIT Press in 2011. It will be a hopeful book, arguing that smaller-scale urbanism in the Northeast and Midwest could be a virtue and a strength in the emerging low-carbon economy. Smaller cities in these regions have population density and the capacity for much more. They have land assets, which large cities lack, that will be needed for relocalizing agriculture, for the siting of windmills, solar farms, anaerobic digesters, and other forms of alternative energy generation, and for the growth of raw vegetable and forest material for biomass production. And they have manufacturing infrastructure that can be retooled for the production of renewable technologies, such as plug-in electric cars, trains, windmill and solar panel components — things for which there will be real market demand in a low-carbon economy.
The book will be structured by chapters focused on the challenges faced by smaller American cities as we begin to reckon with a low-carbon future, in the areas of transportation, agriculture, energy production, manufacturing, and education. Each chapter will explore projects in cities that are facing those challenges by using their small scale and place — historically, geographically, and topographically — to their advantage. Most emphatically, it will be concerned with cities — places with populations of between 40,000 and 400,000 — not small towns. Invisibility has been an overarching indignity these once-thriving urban centers have suffered in a post-industrial culture that, rhetorically and imaginatively, divides the world between large cities (Wall Street) and small towns (Main Street). That invisibility has provided cover for the very real urban problems these places have endured, by many measures far worse than those of big cities.
The United States is in a position to lead and prosper from this new new economy if it acts wisely and swiftly. In other parts of the world, notably in China and in parts of Europe and South America, the promise of smaller cities as a class is actively embraced. Smaller cities in the Northeast and Midwest could also play a central, if decentralized role in the low-carbon transformation and, in the process, reframe the very ways we think and talk about "urbanism."
CoLab Fellow Alumni
Ann Bookman
Aging-Friendly City Project
Working with leaders in Cambridge city government to make Cambridge a city that will meet the needs of the aging population in the decades ahead.
CoLab Fellow Ann Bookman will be working with leaders in Cambridge city government to make Cambridge a city that will meet the needs of the aging population in the decades ahead by building the capacity of local community organizations, municipal government agencies - and elders themselves - to define needs and develop solutions. As new plans and community designs are generated, particular attention will be given to the needs of elders who are economically and socially vulnerable so that they will be able to age with dignity. The project will also involve non-governmental stakeholders in Cambridge such as social service providers, health care providers, real estate developers, businesses, and others. The project will utilize tools and strategies developed by the World Health Organization's "Global Aging-Friendly Cities Project" and learn from the experience of leaders of aging-friendly city projects in the United States and in other countries.
Ann will continue collecting information on the most innovative models of aging in place - organizations that help elders to remain in their homes and community and out of institutional care - drawn from communities throughout the U.S. and other cities around the world. The clearinghouse will be web-based to make this information available to a broad cross-section of community leaders, urban planners, human service providers, and researchers. The clearinghouse will also provide assessment tools that community leaders can use to track and measure quality of life indicators, such as accessible transportation, affordable housing, quality health and home care services, walk-ability of neighborhoods, and other important components of an urban environment that accommodates people of all ages and abilities.
Handeira Linens and Lace
Ilma Paixao is the founder of Handeira Linens and Lace. The Handeira Project is a Lacemaker's Cooperative serving small villages in the Brazilian Northeastern states of Pernambuco and Ceara.
In this region that is economically underdeveloped and short on rainfall, entire villages depend on lacemaking for their living. The art of lacemaking has shaped the indigenous Xukuru way of life for generations. As a CoLab Fellow, Ilma travels to these villages to bring fine handmade lace products to US markets. In order to improve the quality of life in the villages, Ilma has helped develop several programs, which include: a food cooperative for distribution at wholesale prices, tree planting to provide fruit, shade and water retention, a seed bank, communal vegetable gardens, an eye clinic, and funding for school supplies. Ilma's work is representative of approaches that CoLab seeks to support. CoLab's research interests include understanding a new model of development that stems the displacement of indigenous communities and cultures now under threat from the pressures of urbanization and development.
