Sharing Power: Moving Beyond Tokenism to Collaborative Empowerment

Sascha Haselmayer is a partner at Ashoka Germany. As a social entrepreneur, he has led urban innovation, economic development, and government innovation projects in over 40 countries. He trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London and is a globally recognized expert on urban and local government innovation.

In 2011, Sascha co-founded Citymart, an organization that transformed expectations and practices of public procurement by introducing civic engagement, diversity, problem-solving, and innovation into a core bureaucratic process. Prior to Citymart, Sascha founded businesses and organizations that pioneered inclusive urban innovation districts and civic service innovation in cities through a global network of living labs and by advising governments, investors, and universities.

Sascha’s contributions have been recognized through an Ashoka Fellowship and a non-Resident Fellowship at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He has been a Fellow at New America, and advocates for change as a keynote speaker, and lecturer at institutions like the London School of Economics Cities Programme, and Chicago University Booth School of Business.

Sascha is the author of The Slow Lane, and two books on service and procurement innovation in cities. He has served as an adviser to organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Aspen Institute and served on the selection committee of the Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge and the Advisory Board of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme.

Marco Steinberg is Founder and CEO of Snowcone & Haystack, a Helsinki based strategic design practice focused on helping governments innovate. He has worked with local and central governments across the world on issues of development, sustainability, and transformation.

From 2008-2013 Marco was Director of Strategic Design at Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, where he established the fund’s strategic design capability. He launched a portfolio of public governance innovation initiatives including Helsinki Design Lab (www.helsinkidesignlab.org) and Low2No (www.low2no.org). From 1999-2009 Marco served as Associate Professor at the Harvard Design School where he led the Stroke Pathways Project, a system redesign approach to health delivery in the US.

He is author of numerous publications on design and innovation.

He holds degrees from Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University. In 2020 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Delft Technical University (TU Delft).

Katja Urbatsch is the Founder and Managing Director of „Arbeiterkind.de“, a German nonprofit organization to support first generation university students. Urbatsch has studied at the Free University in Berlin, as well as, at Boston University, earning an interdisciplinary Master’s degree in North American Studies and Business, combined with Communications and Media Studies. She worked as a research assistant at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and founded ArbeiterKind.de in 2008. ArbeiterKind.de’s vision is that every talented child from a non-academic family should have the opportunity for educational advancement. The 6,000 volunteers involved in 80 local city groups are mostly first generation students themselves. They encourage other talented youth through their own example.
In 2018 Katja Urbatsch received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her work in strengthening equal opportunities in education. ArbeiterKind.de has received many awards, among them the German Involvement Award and the Ashoka Fellowship in 2009. Urbatsch represents Germany in the Executive Committee Executive of the European Access Network (EAN) since 2011.
In 2011 Katja Urbatsch published a book on the topic of educational advancement: „Ausgebremst: Warum das Recht auf Bildung nicht für alle gilt“.

Lene arbeitet seit über 10 Jahren im öffentlichen Sektor Dänemarks im Bereich Innovation und Wissensaustausch. Lene ist überzeugt, dass eine Neugierde auf andere Sichtweisen und die Einbeziehung anderer Perspektiven einen besseren öffentlichen Sektor schaffen. Sie ist ganz in der Nähe von Deutschland auf der Insel Als aufgewachsen und ist eine begeisterte Yogaanhängerin, die allerdings auch eine Vorliebe für High Heels und Rotwein hat. Lene hat einen MSc in Soziologie der University of Copenhagen, den sie durch ihre Kenntnisse in Projektmanagement und narrativer und systemischer Beratung ergänzt. Lene ist verantwortlich für CO-PI’s Tätigkeit auf dem Gebiet der Innovationsbewertung und der Innovation Awards. Sie ist außerdem eine engagierte Botschafterin für die Zusammenarbeit mit nordischen Akteuren auf dem Gebiet der öffentlichen Innovation.