Lab Notes - November edition

In the November edition of Lab Notes, the monthly digest for public sector innovators, innovation labs and i-teams, we hear from Lene Nygaard of the Municipality of Odense on her work with MindLab co-designing time-saving strategies for teachers, and more.

This month's key lab picks:

1. Read about the people-powered fight for affordable housing for São Paulo’s poorest in this CityLab interview with Alfonso Silva of Brazil’s Homeless Workers’ Movement.

2. Save the dates: more upcoming international LabWorks events in March and November, 2016. Find out more here.

3. A car wash enterprise self-managed by youths is being used to tackle chronic youth unemployment in Hawassa, Ethiopia. Find out about the Projects for Peace initiative here.

4. In this Lab Notes special, we hear from Lene Nygaard of the Municipality of Odense on her work with MindLab co-designing time-saving strategies for teachers.

5. Innovation is key to widening access to renewable energy. This article in The Guardian considers nine ideas to spark innovation in the energy sector.

6. The World Bank Group and SVRI launched a challenge prize for innovations that prevent gender-based violence, which affects more than one in three women worldwide. More here.

7. Effective urban innovation teams have the right amount of executive buy-in, but this piece in The Governing asks what happens when political leadership changes?

8. Labs research: With insights from her year-long fellowship at the Policy Lab, Lucy Kimbell’s report is out. Ben Williamson has also published a working paper on #psilabs.

9. Managing participatory budgeting processes can be challenging. This new Evaluation Toolkit by Public Agenda aims to make the process easier.

10. From leveraging funds for community projects in Plymouth, to assisting thehumanitarian crisis in Syria, these short articles demonstrate the wide-ranging applications of crowdfunding for government at all levels.

11. Cities like Barcelona and Long Beach are taking an open, challenge-based approach to procurement to spur innovation. Learn more in this GCN feature.

12. ‘Reverse Engineering in Public Sector Innovation’ event hosted by Service Lab and the UNDP in Tbilisi, Georgia, December 3-4, 2015. Sessions will focus on high-priority public sector policy issues in Georgia. For more information please email [email protected]