Local Organizations Trying to Tackle Civic Challenges

The Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, Peoria Innovation Alliance, Distillery Labs, and the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council will be hosting a week-long series of civic innovation workshops, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The workshops will be focused on a “Return to Better.” The attendees of this year’s Big Table Greater Peoria program had identified the most pressing community challenges.

Meaningful and tangible action will be taken on “Return to Better.” The entire Greater Peoria community will be engaged through the workshops. Proven methodologies and processes will be utilized that have led to successful projects and pilot programs across the nation. Joshua Gunn, President & CEO at the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, said Peoria has proven its strength at every point of life.

Gunn added, After careful analysis of the feedback we received from The Big Table, community members have identified many key challenges that face our region; the Civic Innovation Challenge is a call to action to solve those problems together. This challenge is open to all community members, and it is my hope that all of Peoria is represented as we take these very important steps to Return to Better.”

The recent Big Table Greater Peoria’s survey results had generated the top 5 challenge statements. Starting on Monday, November 16^th, the workshop participants will be presented with those challenge statements. The participants will be broken down into groups of 5-7. The participants will apply learnings from design thinking, creating a value proposition, identifying and interviewing potential customers/users, and developing a potential solution/program/pilot project to address their chosen challenge statement.

Jake Hamann, Founder & Executive Director at the Peoria Innovation Alliance, said, “Our community must take an innovative approach to solve the systemic issues that impact our daily lives. By applying tried and true methods rooted in entrepreneurial thinking, we believe that meaningful change can be realized by approaching our challenges through the lens of innovation and design thinking. We hope that this inaugural program can expand across our region in the coming years and an innovative mindset can be instilled in all of our citizens as a way to approach solving problems.”