Chief Innovation Officer, USAID
Alexis Bonnell is the Chief Innovation Officer of USAID. Alexis has delivered humanitarian and development programming in over 25 countries, in almost every sector from education to stabilization. Her more than 20 years of experience in management, communications, and innovation have provided her incredible opportunities to work on/with: Wall Street, “Dot.coms”, Middle East Peace Plan, Afghan and Iraq Elections, global emergency response coordination and major logistics operations, and over 20 major innovation programs. Alexis was a founding executive of the U.S. Global Development Lab within USAID. Her focus is how to leverage science, technology, innovation, and partnership for greater impact. Alexis founded the Global Innovation Exchange, and has been lucky enough to see USAID embrace open innovation, prizes, and challenges, to consider more than 35,000 new ideas from around the world and invest in more than 1,000 social innovators and entrepreneurs, changing millions of lives around the world.
Government agencies understand the value of innovation to help improve their customer service and streamline their processes. They have taken a number of approaches to support innovation, from providing technical support and training, to emphasizing the value of user-centered design in innovation. The panelists in this session will be leaders in innovation at their agencies. […]