Innovation Clinic, Round 2

Ramboll Consulting

Hannah Stroud, Elaine Montes, Michael Cole, and Tania Ploumi are partnering with the Livable Cities Lab of Ramboll, a Danish engineering, design and consultancy company. The group is creating a business case for addressing Climate Justice in urban planning by connecting social indicators to dollar values. The hope is for methods to include social benefits in a cost benefit analysis.

Ojai, California

Adam Reilly and Raymond Chen are working in a supportive role with FlipLabs and Carnegie Mellon University through their continued partnership with the City of Ojai in addressing the issue of water scarcity. We aim to create a framework for a more robust water model that can help influence decision-making around water policy.

Trust for Public Land

Courtney Humphries, Jack Whitacre, and Stephan Maranian are working with The Trust for Public Land, a non-profit whose purpose is to “create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come.” This group is aiming to transform an abandoned lot into a recreational park that is climate-adaptive, resilient, and connects the neighborhood to their lands and their community. The students are looking for innovative solutions to stormwater management as one part of a larger Greenway project.

Nagoya Protocol

Candace Famiglietti, Steven Reitz, Brianna Shaughnessy are working with Alexerion, a biotech startup that is in partnership with MIT. Their implementation of the Nagoya Protocol is an understanding of the power dynamics between user and provider countries, as well as researchers and participants. This group is compiling case studies of both successes and failures, realizing that at the heart of each example is the need to start at the community level and work up. If the Nagoya Protocol is to be successful it must build off of its current case studies and work with companies such as Alxerion, leading to a streamlined and regionally-specific approach to its governance.