Harnessing our innovative ideas
BRAVO TO Governor Deval Patrick for establishing a new leadership position to strengthen Massachusetts' creative economy. The appointment of Jason Schupbach as creative economy director brings an important focus to ways in which arts, culture, and innovation can drive economic success and civic vitality. With this new role, we have an opportunity to develop a long-term investment strategy with potentially huge returns: economic competitiveness, improved quality of life, and social impact.
At a recent UMass-Boston and Boston Foundation panel discussion on the Boston Indicators report, I recommended the creation of a $1 billion social impact fund to support creators and innovators as part of a high-leverage strategy to move our community forward. To raise this fund requires building stronger connections among all the institutions in the area that benefit from a healthy and competitive community. This partnership might include universities and colleges, leading corporations, and foundations whose mission includes improving the lives of our citizens.
The Massachusetts creative economy director is well positioned to catalyze this partnership.
Primary research, whether conducted by scientists in a laboratory, artists in a museum, or social entrepreneurs in the community, builds upon a common process: creativity and innovation, discovery of new ideas, a willingness to experiment, and a desire to share outcomes. Understanding that these can take the form of commercial products, ephemeral artworks, or visionary architecture is explicit in the idea of a creative and global economy.
In the Commonwealth, we pride ourselves on innovation: as the birthplace of democracy in the 18th century, and the center of manufacturing and high tech in the 19th and 20th centuries. Social entrepreneurship may one day be seen as Boston's great contribution to the 21st century. High social impact start-ups such as City Year, Year Up, the Steppingstone Foundation, Jump Start, Citizens Schools, and the Institute for Contemporary Art's John Hancock Teen Arts Program were founded, developed, and modeled in Boston and exported to the country and the world. The replicability of these programs exponentially increases their value.
What will it take to fully realize the potential of these models and inspire and support the next generation of creators and innovators? The answer may lie in the independent, nonprofit or social impact sector, of which arts and culture play a role critical to harnessing the creative energy needed to imagine the world differently.
At the national level, the Aspen Institute and Cambridge-based Root Cause have just released a report, "Advancing Social Entrepreneurship," calling for the creation of a similar public-private initiative to support social entrepreneurship and find creative, sustainable solutions to society's ills. Among their recommendations are: collaborations between government leaders and social entrepreneurs; establishment of local, state, and federal offices to promote social entrepreneurship; and awards to recognize and reward innovation.
"Partnerships between government leaders and social entrepreneurs will be the catalyst for enduring solutions to some of America's toughest social and economic problems," noted Walter Isaacson, Aspen Institute's president and chief executive.
Here in Boston, we again have the opportunity to lead with ideas, innovation, and investment, and replicate the strategies that so successfully fostered American entrepreneurialism. The appointment of Jason Schupbach as the new creative economy czar is a hopeful beginning. Why stop there?
Jill Medvedow is director of the Institute of Contemporary Art.
