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The Public
Innovation Institute
From public health and climate resilience to education, civic infrastructure, and responsible AI, our work empowers cities, communities, and individuals to imagine—and build—a more just and equitable future.
News & Features
Research & Initiatives
We are exploring how bold ideas, human ingenuity, and emerging technologies can shape a more just, livable, and imaginative future.
Academic Programs
Our programs are engines of imagination and action, equipping leaders, builders, and dreamers to transform bold ideas into solutions that serve the common good.
Hyperion
A venture program catalyzing innovation and invention in the public-interest
Hyperion provides intensive support for early-stage ventures that combine cutting-edge technology with deep understanding of complex social systems and guided by a diverse network of advisors including city leaders, investors, and public sector professionals. The program offers:
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Embedded research support from institutional partners across MIT, Harvard, and beyond
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A curated community of founders tackling public problems with bold, systems-driven ideas
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Access to policymakers, pilots, and procurement pathways to help your solution reach the people who need it most
Amid the tangled threads of climate, inequality, and health, genuine invention is an act of courage. It takes data and empathy, imagination and rigor, and weaves them into new patterns of collective progress, creating solutions that illuminate paths through the complexity of our time.
About the Institute
We work at the intersection of technology, public policy, and community leadership to design, test, and scale innovations and inventions that improve lives and strengthen the common good.
Rooted in the belief that invention and innovation are powerful tools for societal transformation, we support visionary ideas, elevate underrepresented voices, and bridge the gap between emerging technologies and the public systems that shape our everyday lives.
Our mission is to drive innovation and invention that serves society's needs. We are committed to providing a platform for groundbreaking research projects, supporting impactful initiatives, and fostering collaborations that lead to transformative solutions.
Originally founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the Institute for Technology & Global Health, we began with a mission to explore how innovation could advance health outcomes worldwide. But as the challenges facing society have grown more complex, so too has our work—and with it, our identity. This moment demands a broader vision.
Today, our work spans a wide range of public challenges—from advancing health equity and climate resilience to building ethical AI systems, strengthening local governance, and designing more inclusive urban futures.
10,000,000
people die each year due to pollution-related causes—1 in 6 global deaths.
14X
Every $1 invested in public health returns $14 in economic benefit.
2.7°C
Global temperatures are on track to rise by 2100.
1 million
species threatened with extinction
$4.7 trillion
Global welfare losses due to pollution
14X
Cities lacking green space and heat-resilient infrastructure face twice the mortality risk
Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship
High School Technology Program
A high school program developing a new generation of technologists with the skills to solve society’s biggest challenges and the business acumen to launch ventures that serve the public good — from health and climate to homelessness and democracy
Program Specifics
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A community of next-generation entrepreneurs from across the U.S.
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Learn and build GenAI-enhanced Technologies
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Instructors and Experts from MIT and Harvard
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Collaborate with peers across schools and communities
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Present your work to civic leaders, technologists, and venture capitalists
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No prior coding experience necessary
We must meet the demands of this moment with a broader vision
50%
Today’s jobs that require digital skills; by 2030, that number will rise to 77%
263
million
Children and youth are out of school globally
85
million
Jobs AI is expected to displace but create 97 million new ones by 2025
CHANGE.ENABLED
The Conference on Public-Interest Innovation and Invention
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The
summit
The workshops
Spring 2026
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School
The world doesn’t move in straight lines. A child’s health is shaped by the air they breathe, the school they attend, the code behind a distant algorithm. The fate of a forest can ripple into city streets, job markets, and hospital wards.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
An algorithm used in a hiring platform can echo through generations, widening wage gaps, stifling dreams before they begin.
Bias in code becomes bias in life, and the unseen rules shape the visible world.
A broken sidewalk can shape a lifetime—limiting mobility, opportunity, and access to care.
A city's infrastructure is not just concrete and steel; it is a scaffold for equity, or a blueprint for exclusion.
When data is locked away, communities are left unseen.
And when communities are unseen, so are their struggles, their brilliance, their solutions.
Information justice is social justice.
A heatwave does more than scorch the land—it closes schools, strains hospitals, silences the elderly.
Climate is not a distant threat—it pulses through public health, learning, labor, and the lives of the most vulnerable.
At the Public Innovation Institute, we trace these threads. We listen for the patterns beneath the noise. And in the space between disciplines—between data and dignity, technology and trust—we find the places where real change begins.
Contact Us
Have a question or want to learn more about our research projects, funding initiatives, or collaboration opportunities? Reach out to us, and we'll be delighted to connect with you.
Donate to PII
Donate to The Public Innovation Institute to help advance innovations and inventions in service to society