Principal Investigator Holly Harriel
Co-investigators Katrin Kaeufer , Amy Luster , Grant Williams , J Thompson , Delia Wendel , Catherine D'Ignazio , Mariana Arcaya , Karilyn Crockett , Jason Jackson , Lawrence Vale , Lawrence Susskind , Anne Spirn , Karl Seidman , Ceasar McDowell , Gabriella Carolini
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/colab/
The Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) is a center for research and practice within the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP).
CoLab supports the development and use of knowledge from excluded communities to deepen civic engagement, improve community practice, inform policy, mobilize community assets, and generate shared wealth.
CoLab believes that community knowledge can drive powerful innovation and can help make markets an arena for supporting social justice.
CoLab facilitates the interchange of knowledge and resources between MIT and community organizations. We engage students to be practitioners of this approach to community change and sustainability.
CoLab's Focus: (*) Democratic Engagement (*) Shared Wealth Generation (*) Urban Sustainability
CoLab works with MIT students, faculty, staff and tech¬nical resources to translate its vision and mission into practice by:
Modeling: developing operational models of urban sustainability efforts that are participatory and generate shared wealth. Currently, this work is focused in the areas of energy efficiency, waste management and procurement needs of anchor institutions.
Collaborative research, media and culture: generating new and relevant knowledge about urban sustainability with community partners and co-crafting theories of community engagement, development, and social change; preparing new cadres of planners with the commitment, skills, and ability to lead innovation across sectors and address systemic failures.
Linking: providing space for high-impact stakeholders across multiple sectors to explore common interests and develop transformative projects.
The Lab’s projects currently fall under these major subject areas: (*) Energy (*) Shared Wealth (*) Waste Management (*) Recovery & Rebuilding (*) Learning Networks (*) Media Projects