How do we find new ideas which will work to solve the complex problems that surround us?
So much of how we come up with and design solutions for life is determined by the rules, methods and structure of the environments in which we live and work, even before we are aware of it happening.
But what if we could design a way of generating ideas of what will work to solve some of our most entrenched and pressing problems, in a way that takes us out of these environments and allows us to find new way to think about them?
Welcome to the Curiosity Incubator.
We take the problem-focused innovation approach of entrepreneurial incubators, but instead of focusing on tech platforms or high-growth business ideas alone, we work on incubating ideas across many different formats, disciplines, and approaches across the spectrum of human endeavour, using the power of behavioural science to help work through what works.
There are only two rules:
1) You have to have a nascent idea of how to solve one of our most pressing For Good problems you really want to solve, and
2) You have to be the kind of person who is intrigued by and excited to co-discover new ways of doing this.
Come and find out how! And how our approach of Learn Globally | Act Locally is working to make Cambridge-as-Incubator a novel way of thinking about collective intelligence and solutions creation.
The Curiosity Incubator was launched last year at the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College, Cambridge where it runs twice a year as a 2-day programme. So far it has had participants from the NHS, WHO, UN Economic Commission for Europe, Eden Project, the Open Society Foundation, Ofgem, Cambridge City Council, and many more, as well as launching a host of social purpose enterprises, in areas like the circular economy. It has had its first international session in Madrid, and worked with Cambridge City Council on a built environment- and service provision-focused tailored Incubator to help build the Cambridge we want to see in future. Its 2-day programme runs twice a year at Jesus – July & November, and this specially-designed session with the RSA aims to bring its thinking further out into the world and region.
Bridget Gildea, Founder, Curiosity Incubator | Accelerator for Good
Bridget founded the Curiosity Incubator | Accelerator for Good to create novel, innovative – and critically, practicable and testable - solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. So far, the Incubator has had solutions launched by participants from the WHO, United Nations, NHS, Open Society Foundation, Eden Project, World Energy Council, Cambridge City Council, and a host of social purpose enterprises. In Cambridge, she is a Visiting Scholar at the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College, and Member of the Board of Advisors for the Cambridge University Behavioural Insights Team.
As a Consultant for Public Good, she works at the nexus between innovation, behavioural insights (BI) and public policy, including applying behavioural science approaches to learning and skills and knowledge acquisition and thinking about the future of work and social justice. She also leads the applied learning portfolio for the UCL Institute of Innovation & Public Purpose, including working with the United Nations FAO, National School of Government in South Africa and Brazil, Government of Barbados, and Bloomberg.
Previously as the Director, Programme Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, she founded programmes including the world’s first practitioner behavioural science programme. This also included programmes with the MacArthur Foundation and BIT, on BI and corruption control in Nigeria; with the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Berlin for a programme at Harvard for Members of the German Bundestag, and a 5-year partnership with the National School of Government in Brazil. So far, she’s created over 200 applied learning programmes For Good.
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