Led by the iLab Primeira Infância [1], a Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância [2] initiative
In 2015, Frontiers of Innovation [3] and Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância (NCPI) [4] jointly launched the iLab, a Brazilian social innovation laboratory, to design and test strategies with the potential to transform the lives of children facing adversity. Like other FOI innovation clusters [5], this initiative aims to advance an innovation agenda within the local ECD field and leverage the latest science to develop innovative program models with the potential for impact at scale in Brazil.
Since its inception [1], iLab has supported two cohorts of Brazilian innovators, bringing together practitioners, researchers, and other professionals from the social, business, and government sectors to form multidisciplinary teams, leveraging the diverse experiences of each member to co-create novel solutions based in both the latest science and the lived experiences of the communities with which they work. Two teams from the initial cohort [6] are now implementing later-stage studies with a larger sample. In 2019, the iLab launched a new cohort of projects in its continued effort to develop new innovative solutions for the millions of children facing adversity in Brazil.