The Minas Gerais State Office for Strategic Priorities in Brazil was created in 2011 to help develop an innovation-driven culture in the state government.

It is described as focusing on the collaborative design of solutions with government and civil society organizations while relying on iterative implementation of priority policies and projects on education, healthcare, public security, employment, innovation and open government. It also attempts to act as the government’s intelligence team, monitoring and evaluating impacts and results.

The team are also tasked with accelerating existing projects as well as prototyping, creating and implementing innovative projects. A few examples include:

• SEED – Startups and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Development, aimed at strengthening the innovation ecosystem and turn it into the most important birthplace and acceleration hub for tech entrepreneurs in Latin America;
• Movimento Minas, an open innovation and policy crowdsourcing project aimed at fostering collaborative governance and future insights for scenario planning;
• DataViva (dataviva.info), a big data visualization engine for the Brazilian economy using open data, in partnership with professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Media Lab).

Key resources and further reading

• http://vimeo.com/80812604
• http://www.fastcodesign.com/3022701/innovation-by-design/new-mit-media-lab-tool-lets-anyone-visualize-unwieldy-government-data
• http://thegovlab.org/dataviva-a-big-data-engine-for-the-brazilian-economy/
• http://www.hbrbr.com.br/materia/fortalecendo-cultura-do-uso-de-dados
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2014/06/06/entrepreneurs-not-soccer-players-will-determine-brazils-future/

Website

www.escritorio.mg.gov.br