social movements + innovation lab

About SM+I Lab

Social Movements + Innovation Lab is a space to explore principles and practices for new approaches to social change. Using creative and intersectional approaches to justice, design and innovation, we study, test, and collect tools and practices that lead to more disruptive social change strategies. Contact us if you are interested in learning and experimenting with designing different approaches to a more socially just world.

Back Story

The Social Movements + Innovation Lab is an offshoot of CoreAlign, an organization Sujatha Jesudason founded in 2012. For eight years, CoreAlign focused on building the capacity of the reproductive movement in the US to be more innovative, collaborative, and long-term strategy oriented. CoreAlign facilitated difficult conversations, hosted sessions to envision a 30-year strategy for the movement and trained more than 200 leaders in generative practices and speaking race to power.

In 2017, Sujatha was offered a full professorship at The New School in the Milano School of Policy, Management and Enviroment to teach classes in reimagining social movements, race, and leadership while further documenting and exploring her practices of social justice design and innovation.

Through Social Movements + Innovation Lab, she has offered a series of labs that brings tools, coaching, and transformative spaces to social movement activists. In partnership with the Tishman Environment & Design Center, she is designing a 2-year fellowship for environmental justice leaders to deepen their capacity for contentious interventions in the climate crisis.