Co-creating tools and knowledge with the communities that use them.
About the Collective Innovation Hub
The Collective Innovation Hub is an open platform where communities, technologists, researchers, and civic actors come together to co-create tools, approaches, and solutions that strengthen agency and drive change from within. The Hub brings together three distinct but connected offerings, each designed to ensure that innovation is led by the communities it is meant to serve.
Through the Collective Innovation Hub, a diverse community of practitioners, technologists, and civic actors will co-create, test, and scale tools and solutions that help communities shape the decisions that affect their lives.
Why it exists
Too often, innovation happens in isolation, built by experts far from the communities it is meant to serve. The result is tools and solutions that do not fit local realities, are not owned by communities, and do not last beyond the project that funded them.
There is an urgent need to build innovation from the ground up, rooted in community knowledge, shaped by local priorities, and designed to strengthen agency rather than create dependency.
What we offer
01
Community Innovation Programme
FreeCollaborativeCommunity-based
Innovation that starts with community knowledge
A structured programme where communities, technologists, and practitioners work together to identify challenges, co-create solutions, and test and refine tools rooted in local knowledge and priorities. Participants gain practical innovation skills and leave with tools they own and can sustain independently.
Get involved02
Innovation Sprints
In-personIntensiveCommunity-based
Bringing innovation into your community
Short, focused sprints run in communities to identify challenges, co-create solutions, and test and refine tools for civic action. Participants leave with a stronger understanding of how innovation works, how it can work for them, and the agency to shape how it develops in their context.
03
Scale and Sustain Programme
CollaborativeImpact-drivenLong-term
From community-built solutions to lasting change
Communities and organisations with strong ideas, including those emerging from the Innovation Sprints, work with our team to refine, scale, and sustain solutions that strengthen agency and drive lasting change. The focus is on co-creation, community ownership, and building the capacity to sustain and evolve solutions independently.
How the programme works
01
Identify
A community or organisation identifies a specific challenge or opportunity they want to address.
02
Co-create
We work together to design and build a solution rooted in local knowledge and community priorities.
03
Test and refine
We work alongside the community to test, refine, and improve the solution in their context.
04
Scale and sustain
The community scales and sustains the solution, building the capacity to evolve it independently and share learnings openly.
What you take with you
Practical innovation and co-creation skills grounded in your context
Tools and solutions built and owned by your community
A peer network of innovators and civic practitioners
The capacity to sustain and evolve solutions independently
The agency to shape decisions that affect your community
What we are working toward
A growing library of community-built tools and solutions, openly shared
Communities with the agency to co-create and own the solutions they use
Innovation rooted in local knowledge and community priorities
Evidence and learnings from each programme shared openly with the broader field
Communities shaping the decisions and systems that affect their lives
Who it is for
Community organisations, technologists, researchers, and civic actors looking to co-create tools and solutions rooted in local knowledge and community priorities. The Hub is especially suited to communities and organisations currently excluded from innovation processes, who want to shape how solutions are built and sustained in their context, on their own terms.
Innovation that starts and stays with communities
Every tool, framework, and learning from the hub is published openly so the impact compounds far beyond any single project.
12
Tools co-created with communities
3
Open frameworks published
22
Community innovators supported
2
Countries engaged
Also part of our work