#28 Alex Ryan - MaRS Discovery District

Cool Collaborations

Alex Ryan is my guest for episode #28. Alex helps governments and corporate partners innovate at MaRS Discovery District, in Toronto, Ontario with work in electricity, smart cities, community health. And what really attracted my attention, was Alex’s thinking in systemic design, complex thinking and innovation. While that’s pretty impressive, he’s also written on smart cities, data governance, policy innovation and social innovation and been published in the World Economic Forum, Fast Company, Axios, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Complexity.

We discuss the connections between collaboration and innovation, some of their common ingredients, and the importance of location on innovation. Enjoy our conversation.

Some links to some of the things we discuss during this episode:

• Alex Ryan
• MaRS Discovery District
• Place Matters – at MaRS Discovery District
• Mission from MaRS – Climate Impact Challenge
• The CRANE Tool – assess the emissions reduction potential of climate technologies
• McConnell Foundation
• ABSI Connect - Alberta Social Innovation Connect
• Polarization to Progress: Lessons from the City of Edmonton's social innovation experiment, RECOVER
• When Individuals are More Innovative Than Teams
• Ten Types of Innovation - The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs
• Book: Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions by Donald A. Schon
• Book: Growing Wings on the Way by Rosalind Armson

Your host for the Cool Collaborations podcast is Scott Millar. Scott is the principle of Collaboration Dynamics, where he often works as a "peacemaker" by gathering people with different experiences and values and helping them navigate beyond their differences to tackle complex problems together.