The Journey to the Inclusive Innovation Summit 2019 (Part 2)

Climb Together: The Programmatic Approach

Image: Inclusive Innovation Summit Logo, taking place March 28–30.

Inclusive Innovation Week has come a long way. In 2015, the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Innovation & Performance published the Roadmap for Inclusive Innovation, which evolved into Inclusive Innovation Week, a flagship event that, since 2016, has collaborated to produce over 200 programs with 400 local partners.

As mentioned in Todd Smith’s blog, Inclusive Innovation Summit 2019 will be a three day event, rather than a week-long festival. While we will still be working with partners to create programs, these programs will be chosen through an application process. As always, every event will be free to the public and planned with accessibility in mind.

The intent is to create a more focused, campus-like environment, so that partners and participants will more easily be able to curate their experience and build connections with others.

With this streamlined approach, we are centering our program around the following four outcomes:

Image: Gain Perspective, Learn New Tools, Share Information and Climb Together

Our outcomes are: Gain Perspective, Learn New Tools, Share Information and finally, Climb Together. All of the programs that we accept as part of the Inclusive Innovation Summit will have these outcomes incorporated as part of their proposal.

Climb Together, specifically, is a reference to our intention to build an intersectional, inclusive summit that is made stronger by the collaborations between our various partners. From the very beginning, Inclusive Innovation Week has been about connecting with local partners, the real drivers behind this work. Our vision is that our partners collaborate with one another and run with these ideas, to create their own inspiring, exciting programs.

We are not experts in Inclusive Innovation; we are merely practitioners. With that in mind, our team believes these four key ingredients will inspire opportunity for participants and partners to continue practicing inclusive innovation even after they’ve left the summit.

So how do we get to the summit? We are creating paths for our participants that we are calling Treks.

Image: Our four intended treks: Active Learning, Empathy Training, Capacity Building and Knowledge Sharing.

Along with the learning outcomes, all of the programs will be themed using one or more of these treks. We are defining these treks as follows, but these definitions are meant to be used as inspiration, not a firm guideline.

• Active Learning — engage participants in meaningful learning that involves writing, talking, crafting, problem solving, reflecting, etc.
• Empathy Training — teach participants skills to understand other people through training and experience.
• Capacity Building — guide participants on how to obtain, improve, and retain the skills, knowledge, tools, equipment and other resources needed to do their jobs competently or to a greater capacity.
• Knowledge Sharing — the intentional act of exchanging information or understanding to help participants be more adaptable.

These treks are intended to flow and intersect with one another, allowing for the freedom to create a personalized, curated experience.

This isn’t to say that we plan to do this alone.

This event would not be possible without the contributions of our community in Pittsburgh. Stay tuned for more details about our program proposal application. Even if you do not plan to organize a program, we welcome your feedback and input. We encourage you to come out to one of our Human Centered Workshops led by our Executive Public Allies. Will announce the dates on our Meetup. Make sure to join this group to receive updates.

Let’s all continue onward to make Pittsburgh the best place it can be, for everyone.

We Climb Together.

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