What are your aspirations for Central Texas? I”ll tell you mine: Central Texas is an inclusive community, we are proactive in addressing community issues and everyone has the opportunity to succeed. Well, I guess that”s more than one aspiration, but I think we can get there. Today, we are in the first day of Public Innovator Lab, hosted by Rich Harwood and the Harwood Intitute for Public Innovation. The Lab is an orientation on how Central Texans can make “real change” happen in our community; to address our community”s most pressing issues.
I”m excited about the next three days. I”m in a room with people full of knowledge, experience and the “ganas” to make things happen. I”m talking about community, nonprofit, city, business and regional folks. One of online slots the first things we discussed was our aspirations for our Central Texas community. In our discussion, we talked about the issues (poverty, economic and educational disparities, racism, neighborhood isolation, etc.) and how we can come together to make a lasting difference. I want to share some of our aspiration notes (see above).
Today, we started to build a network of people who want to make change and hope real. What issues will we tackle or how will we go about it? That”s still to be determined but I am excited about the possibilities!
Public Innovators: Tommy Darwin (UT) & Margaret Valenti (City of Austin)
Read more about the Harwood Institute
View the first class of Public Innovators
Mando
Director, Hands On Central Texas