• Article

    How the Creative Class Group and FIU’s College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts will work to improve Miami’s urban future at Mana Wynwood

    Published April 5, 2017 by

    Rana Florida is CEO of the Creative Class Group. Miami has been on a roll. It is attracting people at a rapid clip, it is a center of arts, culture and design, and its entrepreneurial ecosystem is growing. Today the region is at a critical inflection point. How can it grow further? How can it deepen its startup ecology? How can it ensure that its growth is inclusive, and that all Miamians can share in a new era of more inclusive prosperity?
  • Article

    Enabling innovation in libraries

    Published April 3, 2017 by

    This post is second in a series about a gathering of library directors Knight Foundation convened in Miami Feb. 11-12, 2017, as part of its continuing work with libraries. Knight Foundation also recently released a report “Developing Clarity: Innovating in Library Systems,” and announced a package of funding to support innovation in libraries. The second day of the Knight Foundation’s library directors’ meeting, on Feb. 12, began with “Making Innovation Happen in a Constrained Environment,” a mini-panel featuring Melanie Huggins, executive director of the Richland Library in Columbia, South Carolina, and Story Bellows, chief innovation and performance officer of the Brooklyn Public Library.
  • Article

    Innovation, an essential pursuit for libraries in the digital age

    Published March 30, 2017 by

    This post is one in a series about a gathering of library directors Knight Foundation convened in Miami Feb. 11-12, 2017, as part of its continuing work with libraries. Today, Knight Foundation is also releasing a report “Developing Clarity: Innovating in Library Systems,” and announcing a package of funding to support innovation in libraries. The biggest challenges facing library organizations, according to Knight Foundation survey data, are funding, staff time, resources…and lack of resources.      They all affect what libraries can do, what choices they can make to be more effective, and the way they pursue innovation.
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    Helping libraries keep pace with the demands of the digital age

    Published March 30, 2017 by

    Over the last two years, Knight Foundation has funded 36 library innovation projects through two Knight News Challenges. As we closed our review of entries last spring in Miami, the library leaders in the room voiced a desire to learn more about what innovation means in a library context. It seemed like a good idea to us, too, so we took on the task. Today, we’re introducing some of the results of that work and our efforts to strengthen the capacity of public libraries to meet digital age demands.
  • Article

    Where you can meet Knight at SXSW 2017

    Published March 9, 2017 by

    SXSW, one of the world’s largest gatherings of techies, journalists, educators, filmmakers, interactive media producers and musicians kicks off Friday, March 10. Thousands of attendees who descend on Austin, Texas, are prepping their schedules for must-see panels, performances and demos.   Knight Foundation’s Journalism, Technology Innovation and Community and National Initiatives programs will take part in discussions around Austin over the next week. Check out these events to connect with Knight and our partner network at SXSW Interactive.
  • Article

    Y-Combinator CEO Michael Seibel kicks off Black Tech Weekend with tips for entrepreneurs

    Published March 1, 2017 by

    Black Tech Weekend kicked off last Thursday with a standing-room-only crowd that gathered at CIC Miami to hear from Michael Seibel, CEO of Y-Combinator, the leading business accelerator. Though Seibel received top billing, the program began with advice from both Sarah Kunst, founder and CEO of Proday, a subscription fitness app that allows users to work out with pro athletes and fitness celebrities, and from Angela Benton, CEO and founder of NewME, a Miami business accelerator targeting minority and women entrepreneurs that relocated from San Francisco. 
  • Article

    What does it mean to be a learning organization?

    Published February 27, 2017 by

    Social change is messy and complicated, and it can take a long time to come to fruition, typically by way of a winding, sometimes meandering, path. Such a context requires patience, comfort with complexity, and the humility to recognize that bets are just that—guesses about what might work over time.Certainly, monitoring and evaluation have an important place in assessing the strength of investments over time as well as the yield (or unanticipated consequences) of past efforts. What is often missing, however, is sufficient clarity about the problem or challenge a bet is intended to address.At Knight Foundation, we are beginning to use the term learning organization to describe not simply the rote mechanics of surfacing insights from past and present work, but to also encompass the ability and judgment to identify addressable challenges, formulate smart bets, and then rigorously interrogate and scrutinize those bets and the contours of the problems they are meant to attack.
  • Article

    ‘Architectural Imagination’ exhibit presents an array of visions for Detroit

    Published February 22, 2017 by

    Since becoming the first U.S. city to receive a UNESCO City of Design designation, Detroit has been abuzz with the potential of design to shape the future of life in the city. From the 2016 Detroit Design Festival—which included a two-day summit of panel discussions about the many concerns and influences of a design-based approach to social and cultural intervention—to anticipation of the return of DLECTRICITY in the fall of 2017, Detroit has had design on the brain. These forays into Detroit’s conceptual potential have not merely been restricted to local reflection; as Detroit joins a cohort 47 of cities in 33 countries around the globe that form the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), it is more than ever the focus of international attention. And the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, a nonprofit group that acts as the steward of the city's UNESCO designation, received $1 million from Knight to support a 10-year vision of the metropolis as a UNESCO City of Design.This attention was recently crystallized with Detroit being honored as the representative city for the United States Pavilion of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Collectively titled "The Architectural Imagination," the exhibition featured the works of 12 teams of architects, selected from more than 250 submissions, and presents a version of Detroit visible through a highly imaginative lens. Following its run at the Biennale through November 2016, the exhibition has come to the MOCAD (a Knight Arts grantee), where it will be on display through April 16.