Going Public

Chances are, your latest project or enterprise features ways for people to “get involved” and “take action", but what projects foster participation rather than passive audience-ship? Join Liz and Bill in discussing failures, successes, and lessons learned from years of designing participation, from interacting with strangers via a "talk to me" sign, or through supporting a network of “questioners” with the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science. This discussion will explore what resources are available for young entrepreneurs to effectively design, launch, and sustain these ventures, and highlight the promises and challenges of the scaling process.

Liz Barry is a founding member of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science and serves as Director of Community Development, guiding the group’s unique combination of place-based organizing and online commons-based peer production. She teaches in Columbia University’s graduate urban design department and speaks internationally on collaboration and urban environmental management. In 2015, the City of New York scaled TreeKIT – a project which she co-developed with Philip Silva to measure, map and monitor street trees – into a city-wide initiative (TreesCount!). She was a Fellow at the Design Trust for Public Space on Five Borough Farm Phases II & III (2012-14), and was named a Sunlight Foundation OpenGov Champion (2012). lizbarry.com

Bill Wetzel is the Director of the Clinton Global Initiative University, which works with university students and the higher education community to fund, mentor, and launch innovative student-led enterprises in five focus areas: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation, and public health. Wetzel has worked with CGI since the launch of CGI U in 2007. Before joining CGI, Wetzel co-founded the Talk to Me Project, a civic engagement initiative that was featured in media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and This American Life.