InnovateK12 Names Ann Majchrzak as Chief Innovation Officer
Leading researcher and world-renowned crowd-based innovation expert lends her expertise and best practice
SARASOTA, Fla., June 21, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- InnovateK12 is pleased to announce the appointment of crowd-based engagement expert Ann Majchrzak as Chief Innovation Officer.
Dr. Majchrzak, a global leader and researcher in the field of crowd-based innovation, is an important addition to the InnovateK12 leadership team, illustrating the company's commitment to the K-12 segment as well as its dedication to helping school districts improve, transform, and innovate stakeholder engagement.
"InnovateK12 is thrilled to formalize what has been an amazing and long-standing partnership, really a mentorship with Ann," said Evan St. Lifer, CEO of InnovateK12. "We are extraordinarily grateful to expand the opportunity to leverage her ground-breaking research and best practices to help transform school district relationships with their communities in order to become the best version of themselves."
In her role as Chief Innovation Officer, Dr. Majchrzak will help InnovateK12 ensure that its tools and practices represent the latest in scientific research.
A social psychologist and long-time faculty member (recently retired) at The University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, Dr. Majchrzak is a prolific researcher and publisher in the field of Digital Innovation—also known as Open Innovation—having spent decades researching how to best optimize the way people engage in online environments. She has been working with InnovateK12 for the last 18 months, helping to ensure that the company's online practices are evidence-based, having been rigorously tested in previous field research with a number of organizations involved in the same type of stakeholder engagement transformations that occur among school districts in the K-12 space.
Further, Majchrzak's research has given rise to an established method for determining whether a community or organization is effectively collaborating to produce the type of innovative and creative thinking necessary to generate novel, as well as more feasible ideas, dynamic solutions, and better outcomes. Her method is described in her book, Unleashing the Crowd: Collaborative Solutions for Wicked Business and Societal Problems, available on Amazon.
"It pains me that, with these online methods, we are not engaging the full range of interested people to help solve some of the thorny issues that a school community faces," said Dr. Majchrzak, whose ground-breaking work in crowd-based engagement has enabled communities and networks to harness the collective intelligence of their stakeholders.
"InnovateK12 is the only organization I have found that truly understands that stakeholder engagement is much more than simply asking for input; it is a process of reaching out to the entire community ranging from janitors to potential employers; from current students to past students; from students' nuclear family to students' broader networks. This is all possible when we do this in a controlled way using InnovateK12's cutting edge platform."
Dr. Majchrzak's work spans across the public and private sectors, including partnerships with:
- Rocketdyne, Texas Instruments, and Boeing. Drove creation of a novel rocket engine that had fewer parts—reusable, and cheaper than anything in use in the U.S.
- HyperloopTT, an R&D startup. Developed a global, collaborative network of experts to drive innovation in the hyperloop transportation field.
- New Zealand's Landcare Research Institute. Worked to help eradicate a swarming pest population that was killing the country's native fauna.
"She has an impressive track record for mobilizing communities to solve complex, vexing problems and challenges," said St. Lifer. "These are the exact the competencies schools and school ecosystems need, as so many communities are polarized and dealing with unprecedented challenges."
ABOUT INNOVATEK12
InnovateK12 is a collaboration and engagement platform that leverages and optimizes the science of human interaction and innovation to help districts drive more dynamic and effective solutions. Relying on its exclusive, peer-reviewed research on the role of effective, dynamic human engagement in innovation, InnovateK12 focuses on providing K12 schools a safer, more reliable, and constructive way to collaborate with stakeholders, fostering community-wide participation and engagement.
InnovateK12 provides school communities the technology tools, resources, and best practices they need to tap into the diverse brilliance and potential of all its stakeholders, enabling them to collaborate on their most critical issues and top priorities yielding a more evolved and effective operating model, while enhancing community-wide capacity.
Media Contact
Evan St. Lifer, InnovateK12, 1 3129538085, [email protected]
SOURCE InnovateK12
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