Ben Kittelson: Durham’s award-winning vision for community innovation
The city and county of Durham, North Carolina have a very close working relationship. This, according to Ben Kittelson, is one key reason their award-winning joint innovation partnership has become such a success.
Kittelson is Senior Budget Management Analyst with the City of Durham, but he is also the manager of Innovate Durham. He was on-hand as the program, which creates local government connections with start-ups and entrepreneurs, was recognized by the Alliance for Innovation with the J. Robert Havlick Award for Innovation in Local Government.
After joining colleagues to pick up the award at the 2019 Transforming Local Government Conference in Reno, Nevada he also sat down with Municipal World CEO Susan Gardner to provide a glimpse into the program’s innovative nature.
Opening the Doors to Local Government Innovation
“We were really surprised. We were pleased and proud that we were recognized,” Kittelson said. “Innovate Durham is a partnership program where we just say, let’s open the doors of local government for start-ups and entrepreneurs. Often, local governments are kind of in their own worlds. Start-ups and entrepreneurs don’t know how to break into that if they want to. They don’t know what the local government world is about.”
Innovate Durham – launched in 2017 – lowers the barrier to entry for companies looking to work with the city and county. Meanwhile, it creates a space for staff to experiment and prototype new ideas. Over the course of 12 weeks, city and county departments work with the businesses and new technologies they normally wouldn’t be exposed to or that wouldn’t be brought forward through a regular RFP process.
At the same time, it gives start-ups an opportunity to take the next step as a business, test assumptions or try out the local government market.
Virtual Reality Provides a Glimpse into Possibilities
During the video, Kittelson points Innovate Durham’s partnership with virtual reality company Lucid Dream as being particularly representative of how the program works.
The partnership led to the creation of a 12-week pilot project that used virtual reality to tell the story of how expanded housing choices could impact the wider Durham community. MW
✯ Municipal World Insider and Executive Members: You might also be interested in the article: Innovating, capacity-building partnership earns award for Durham, NC. Note that you can now access the complete collection of past articles (and more) from your membership dashboard.
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