The objective of the Policy Hack run during the 2019 Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley (SEC2SV) edition, was to explore innovative ways to address some of today’s most pressing policy issues faced by global innovators and entrepreneurs and to provide a transatlantic view on how local government can best work to develop innovative solutions that diversify energy production, efficiently use technology, foster entrepreneurship, create attractive innovation and startup hubs, and address climate change in a way that is inclusive for citizens.
More than 30 representatives from two very different regions (Europe and US) spent a creative afternoon together discussing better policies in an informal setting.
With backgrounds as policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors and advisors they had to agree on how to tackle policy problems in a way they could all back.
Teams of five to six ‘hackers’ were given two hours to brainstorm and draft solutions for four different local government ecosystems: the Sardinia Region in Italy, Local and Regional Authorities in Norway, the City of Alcobendas in Spain and the City of Palo Alto in California. The four teams brought together representatives from across the startup ecosystem and each chose one issue area to address.
This new report describes the Policy Hack methodology and summarizes what the teams discussed and agreed to present as solutions for actions.
The Policy Hack is a format Mind the Bridge has been using since the past few years to help governments design solutions to policy challenges.
A recent example is the Policy Hack MTB organized in February 2020 for the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of European Commission. We brought to Brussels a group of European entrepreneurs and investors to discuss challenges in the area of climate neutral cities. They worked a full day with EU policy officers to identify novel actionable smart mobility and construction solutions.
Next one will be at the end of September in San Francisco alongside the Scaleup Summit. Similarly as last year, the focus will be on solutions for local government. We currently are in the phase of collecting challenges from cities, municipalities, and regions. We will select the participating institutions by the end of June. If interested, feel free to contact us.