Bio

Gabriella Gómez-Mont is the founder and director of Experimentalista, a novel type of nomadic and creative office specialized in cities – and that constantly shifts shape to accommodate high-level, transdisciplinary collaborations across the world.  She was also the former Chief Creative Officer of Mexico City, and the founder of Laboratorio para la Ciudad (2013 – 2018), the award-winning experimental arm and creative think-tank of the Mexico City government, reporting to the Mayor.

As director of the Lab she headed a young, transdiciplinary team: from urban geographers, political scientists and civic tech experts, to artists, historians and philosophers. The Lab was created to tackle urban challenges – from experiments in democracy and mobility to projects related to spatial justice, play as a city making tool; new models of dynamic governance and civic tech platforms etc – creating novel transdisciplinary methodologies and participatory practices, exploring ways to find common ground in a gargantuan, diverse (and often divided) city. Hence the Lab’s projects were multiple, often paradigmatic and covered widely in international publications. 

 Besides her fascination with all things city, Gabriella is a journalist, visual artist, and director of documentary films, as well as a creative advisor to several cities, universities and companies. She has received several international recognitions for her work in different fields, such as the first prize in the Audi Urban Future Award, the Best Art Practice Award given by the Italian government, The Creative Bureaucrats Award by the city of Berlin, and the TED City 2.0 Prize, among others. She was also named one of the 100 most creative people in business by Fast Company magazine.

Gabriella is currently a Visiting Professor of Practice and Senior Policy Fellow at UCL Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), invited by economist Mariana Mazzucato. She is also a Yale World Fellow, TED Senior Fellow, MIT Director´s Fellow, Georgetown University Visiting Fellow, Canadian Urban Institute Senior Fellow, Institute for the Future Fellow, a Salzburg Seminar Fellow, a Fabrica Alumni and a World Cities Summit Young Leader. Gabriella was part of the international advisory committee for the Mayor of Seoul on Social Innovation (2015 – 2021), as well as NACTO’s Streets for Kids, The XXII Triennale of Milan, Nesta’s research on the Future of Public Imagination and C40 ́s Knowledge Hub. She is currently on the advisory board of Harvard´s Mexican Cities Initiative, Canada´s MaRS Lab, NYU´s Gov Lab, University of Michigan (urban tech), and The Foundation for Public Code.

She has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, NYU et al, and given talks around the world at conferences such as The Atlantic ́s + Bloomberg ́s CityLab (at three different editions), The Obama Foundation Inaugural Summit, Moscow Urban Forum, Skoll Social Innovation Forum, NESTA, TED, UCLG Mayor ́s International Summit, The USA Mayors Network, SxSW, C2, World Bank, IDB, Brookings Institute, Rockefeller Foundation, Festival of Ideas, Sydney Creative Summit, among others, many times with Mayors (and on occasions with former Presidents, such as President Obama) in the audience. Both The Harvard Business School and the Harvard Mayor’s School (a Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative in collaboration with the Kennedy School) dedicate an afternoon every year to discussing the “Mapatón” case study – one of the Lab´s emblematic experiments – as an example of how imaginative civic engagement can help solve urban challenges at scale.

Gabriella was born in Mexico City and is now living bewteen Mexico City and Amsterdam, NL.

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