Public Sector Innovation and Smart Cities

Public sector organizations around the world face many pressures including budget cuts, high expectations from the public, and increasing challenges in vital areas such as health and education. While innovation in the private sector has constantly produced new products and services, the public sector is often viewed as slow to respond and even slower to adapt. However, there are several examples of public agencies around the world who are constantly innovating by developing imaginative policies and introducing creative products and services through smart cities. The purpose of this course is to introduce approaches that can help public sector organizations become better innovators by combining greater creativity with more focus on evidence and impact.

This course relies on the use of interactive public sector case studies to demonstrate the different components of effective innovation in the public sector. In addition, this course utilizes individual debriefs, group discussions, role playing, and presentations as well as best practice benchmarks from different countries.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Support the need for public sector organizations to better create, improve and adapt through the implementation of innovation systems
• List the stages of innovation needed to positively impact public sector policy decisions
• Apply human centered design principles to public sector policies and procedures
• Outline different benchmarks of successful smart cities around the world
• Identify the crucial innovation blocks needed for a mature public sector innovation system

Research analysts, associates, managers and directors in government organizations who would like to learn more about government innovation methodologies and approaches.

• Innovative thinking
• Creativity
• Conceptual thinking
• Problem solving
• Analysis of data
• Balanced decision-making
• Results orientation
• Flexibility