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Public spaces are an important part of Knight Foundation's work in cities and the communities where we invest. We believe that great public spaces have the power to transform cities. They are where neighbors can meet and residents can enjoy local arts and culture, take a jog or spend time with family. They help to advance civic engagement and the attachment people feel to their cities - both necessities for creating more informed and engaged communities. Recent research by the Center for Active Design shows that public spaces can help to facilitate community connection, trust and involvement.

Los Angeles County is an epicenter for innovation in aerospace. From the well-known aerospace and defense corporations like Boeing to the newly emerging space transport companies of SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, many important innovations are taking place right here in L.A. County as we migrate our national space program from the public to the private sector. Join us as we hear from these leaders on how they are transforming the aerospace and space travel industries and launching them to new heights.

P2PU is a grassroots network of individuals who seek to create an equitable, empowering, and liberating alternative to mainstream higher education. We work towards this vision by creating and sustaining learning communities in public spaces around the world. As librarians and community organizers, we bring neighborhoods together to learn with one another. As educators, we train facilitators to organize their own networks and we develop/curate open educational resources. As developers and designers, we build open source software tools that support flourishing learning communities. And as learners, we work together to improve upon and disseminate methods and practices for peer learning to flourish.

We are a newly formed Social Enterprise established to improve the way that service providers stimulate and support the development of the Big Society concept. By Big Society we mean everything from building the capacity of volunteers to supporting organisations to work better together with the community. We have a strong history in participatory democracy and have developed out of a commitment to 'practice what we preach'. Our raisen d'etre is to empower organisations and communities to reconnect within the social space that lies between the state and the individual. Ultimately, we aim to promote participatory democracy and increase social capital, for the mutual benefit of all.

ABOUT IDEO WHAT WE DO IDEO (pronounced "eye-dee-oh") is an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to helping organizations in the public and private sectors innovate and grow. We identify new ways to serve and support people by uncovering latent needs, behaviors, and desires. We envision new companies and brands, and we design the products, services, spaces, and interactive experiences that bring them to life. We help organizations build creative culture and the internal systems required to sustain innovation and launch new ventures.

Mutual Awakening is a powerful spiritual opening that occurs between two or more individuals who have turned toward each other in a gesture of profound sensitivity and vulnerability. This profound level of connection brings us into an inner world that exists between us. This shared inner space, sometimes called inter-subjectivity or 'we-space,' is a new frontier in consciousness. Most of us have very little access to it, but over the course of the next few decades our society will develop a capacity for experiencing inter-subjectivity that will rival our current access to individual consciousness.

At the Placemaking Leadership Forum this fall, more than 450 dedicated public space practitioners and policymakers came together to chart the future of the placemaking movement. The second day of the event was structured around ten major issues that converge in public space, which we at PPS refer to as "transformative agendas."

In GlobalNet21 we bring people together both online and off.  We hold many meetings from those in the House of Commons to online webinars and from larger meetings and presentations to smaller study circles. We work with others to create events that people want to engage in. In creating this virtual "public square" GlobalNet21 has emerged now as a vast social networking system that brings new audiences together to discuss and seek solutions for critical issues of the day - issues that divide and threaten the stability of our society and our planet. We also create space at meeting and online for people to connect and collaborate so that they can take further action whether that is expressing their views through our networks, learning more from others or linking with others to take action in order to make a difference.

WHAT IF WE BUILT OUR COMMUNITIES AROUND PLACES? As both an overarching idea and a hands-on approach for improving a neighborhood, city, or region, Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, Placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value. More than just promoting better urban design, Placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

The Street Plans Collaborative is an urban planning, design, and research-advocacy firm. We strive to create high-quality public spaces, and believe that the key to reversing the harmfulmn effects of suburban sprawl is to promote compact, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. We thrive on working with our clients, partners, and other likeminded organizations to improve the quality and function of the built environment. We seek to increase the effectiveness of multi-modal transportation as a means to creating more competitive and sustainable 21st century towns and cities.

GreaterPlaces is a crowdsourced "How-To" manual for creating great communities - cities, suburbs and rural areas.   Think of a Pinterest or Houzz for community design. WHAT IS COMMUNITY DESIGN? Community design is about people, the places we live, and the spaces we share.  Community design is also about how we come together and make decisions that affect our communities and neighbors: from crossroads in the country to homeowners' associations in the suburbs to new apartments in the city.

"We activists need to become better "reflectivists", taking the time to understand the system before (and while) engaging with it. We need to better understand the stop-start rhythm of change exhibited by complex systems and adapt our efforts accordingly. And we need to become less arrogant, more willing to learn from accidents, from failures, and from other people. Finally, we have to make friends with ambiguity and uncertainty, while maintaining the energy and determination so essential to changing the world."

E-Democracy.org builds online public space in the heart of real democracy and community. Our mission is to harness the power of online tools to support participation in public life, strengthen communities, and build democracy. Starting with the world's first election information website in 1994 in Minnesota, today we host over 50 local Issues Forums in 17 communities across three countries - New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to these "online town halls" and our "community life" forums we promote civic engagement online around the world.

This is a living story of the process arts. Processes can relate to the individual (such as meditation), interpersonal dynamics (for example Nonviolent Communication), group processes (e.g. Open Space, World Cafe, unconference and wiki), on up to very large scale systems, such as economic, legal and political structures (e.g. Threebles, Restorative Circles, or Citizen Deliberative Councils). Even more than a list of particular processes though, the process arts are about an awareness that however we are doing something, that is simply one particular way, and we can and often do experiment with doing it any number of other ways.

It is vital that we understand the physical nature of wealth so we can envision and build economic systems that are capable of (1) reducing chronic inequality in the world; (2) recognizing the inherent value of nature as a foundational building block for any economic system; and (3) exploring the 'design space' of all possible economic systems to find those best suited for planetary sustainability.

As our politics and public life have become increasingly divisive and toxic, too many Americans no longer see their realities reflected and no longer believe that they can make a difference. Real progress in communities can be hard to come by. And yet, across the country, people yearn to believe that we can get things done together and make hope real for everyone. It is this belief in people's innate ability to come together and create authentic hope, that sparked a then 27-year-old Richard C. Harwood to found The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation and dedicate himself to making the case for a different kind of public life and politics. For more than 20 years, through innovation, on-the-ground efforts, and ground-breaking research, we know what it takes to get things done in communities and strengthen our civic culture. We help people develop into Public Innovators, build Boundary Spanning Organizations, grow common spaces for innovation and learning, and cultivate the conditions, norms, and productive narratives that help their communities move forward. Today, our approach is being used by tens of thousands of individuals in communities across the U.S. and around the globe. But more is needed. We have an audacious strategy to make a case for a different kind of public life and politics and to spread these ideas, insights, and approaches so that people can make them their own. Of course, no single organization or individual can make these changes on their own; but, together, we can.

HOW IT WORKS MUNICIPALITIES SUBMIT PROJECTS TO CITIZINVESTOR.COM. These are projects that have already been scored, department-approved and only lack one thing - funding. Projects range from building a new park to installing speed bumps or adding a few parking spaces to your neighborhood library. The list of these projects for any city is nearly endless. Currently, these projects sit on a long-list behind other budget priorities, especially now when local government budgets are tighter than ever before. CITIZENS INVEST IN THE PROJECTS THEY CARE ABOUT MOST. For the first time ever, we are giving citizens the opportunity to tell government exactly where they want their dollars spent. Citizens can find projects that their local government has posted on Citizinvestor.com and pledge to invest any amount they wish towards the project. Not only can citizens invest in projects from their local governments, but Citizinvestor also gives citizens the opportunity to petition for new projects that local government either hasn't thought of or hasn't approved. ONCE A PROJECT IS 100% FUNDED, THE PROJECT IS BUILT!

Existing patterns of urban and suburban development seriously impair our quality of life. The symptoms are: more congestion and air pollution resulting from our increased dependence on automobiles, the loss of precious open space, the need for costly improvements to roads and public services, the inequitable distribution of economic resources, and the loss of a sense of community. By drawing upon the best from the past and the present, we can plan communities that will more successfully serve the needs of those who live and work within them. Such planning should adhere to certain fundamental principles.

Our vision at Future.ly is to make the cutting edge standard, visualize future possibilities and map the players, influence factors and dynamics in the innovation space around the world. Ranging from tracking the Innovators, the institution or startups that they work in, the technologies that they are working on to the invisible characteristics that connect them. We aggregate relevant data sources to monitor dynamics and surface trends within different areas and enable the visual exploration of this data.

Our vision at Future.ly is to make the cutting edge standard, visualize future possibilities and map the players, influence factors and dynamics in the innovation space around the world. Ranging from tracking the Innovators, the institution or startups that they work in, the technologies that they are working on to the invisible characteristics that connect them. We aggregate relevant data sources to monitor dynamics and surface trends within different areas and enable the visual exploration of this data.