Gabriella Gómez-Mont

Gabriella Gómez-Mont is the founder of Laboratorio para la Ciudad, the experimental arm and creative think tank of the Mexico City government, reporting to the Mayor. The Lab creates links between civil society and government, accommodating multidisciplinary collaborations. As the head of the lab, Gómez-Mont is experimenting with unusual solutions to difficult issues.  It crowdsourced the first citywide bus map via a lab-built app. The lab also built a digital discussion-and-debate platform – the city used it for communicating with citizens after anti-Uber protests turned violent last summer, but it can be adapted for any other topic. The lab’s team includes artists, graphic designers, policy experts, social scientists, data analysts, architects, an urban geographer, and experts in civic tech and AI.

Gabriella is also a journalist, visual artist, director of documentary films, and creative advisor to several cities, universities, and companies. She has been awarded several international recognitions such as the first prize in the Audi Urban Future Award, and the TED City 2.0 Prize. She is a Yale World Fellow, TED speaker, TED Senior Fellow, an MIT Director’s Fellow, an Institute for the Future Fellow, a World Cities Summit Young Leader and part of the international advisory committee for the Mayor of Seoul on Social Innovation. She was recently named one of the 100 most creative people by Fast Company magazine.