It all started with an idea to create a new "space"–both real and virtual–for thought leaders and innovators to talk, share ideas, and support each other. The result: The Innovators Guild:

The basic tenet of the Innovators Guild is team-building across industries, organizations, and geography. What better way to build trust than to travel together and work on a project? Joi Ito (Media Lab director) and Colin Raney (design director and location lead, IDEO Boston) decided that a great way to get the Guild rolling would be to have a field trip centered around a hackathon as a way to explore innovation off the page and in the field. So they decided to go to the field, literally, and take a closer look at urban farming and food production in Detroit. 

Thus, we give you . . . IGDetriot: The Scouting Mission.

Graduate student Jenny Broutin's SeedPod project was a starting-off point for thinking about supply chains and food production in a large urban area.

When we got to Detroit we saw first-hand some of the different ways that people there were tackling some of the issues we'd been thinking about in broad strokes. We listened and looked at what these makers and doers are already creating: community, networks, seat-of-the-pants innovation and problem solving. These folks are clever and scrappy and hard-working. We realized that rather than telling them about what we do at the Lab, and figuring out how it might help them, that instead we should look at what they've done already with good old-fashioned (and new-fashioned) ingenuity, elbow grease, and minimal resources (that is, cash). 

Above: Joi Ito is second from right, in the blue shirt.

We met with like-minded innovators already at work, such as Jeff Sturges and the folks at the Mt. Elliott Makerspace.

And we (of course) made time for some awesome meals, like this one at Brother Nature Farm with farmers Greg and Olivia.

Greg talked to us about the challenges and successes of Brother Nature Farm. You can read more about BNF here and here.

We were fascinated by some of the other renewal projects happening around the city, like this one at Spauldling Court. Here, people are working to rebuild this 20-unit complex.

You can read more about our trip on the Media Lab blog.