Social Innovation Lab @ Accelerate

 Our team of 6 Fellows in our Social Innovation Lab are working with the Franklin Park Zoo this summer. We are focusing on the Anteater and Gorilla exhibits. Our objective is to increase visitor interaction and education with the animals and improve the experience for both. As we have been saying around Accelerate, "Happy Visitors Through Happy Animals." For more info and related content, check out @WITXLR8, @CLPWentworth, @zoonewengland, @WITnews on Twitter.

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Making progress...

Our newest prototype of the forage feeder for the gorillas at the Franklin Park Zoo! 

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Some wheels we 3D printed for our forage feeder concept!

They will be used to launch food into the gorilla exhibit.

This will encourage more natural feeding habits for our big ape friends!

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Doing some sketching today! Moving onto our possible solutions, were trying to figure out how to make them possible. 

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This snapshot shows his enrichment that consists of him eating "ants" from a clear acrylic tube. With this form of enrichment, visitors have a chance of seeing Jockamo's two foot long tongue!

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Snapshot of 6/18/2014, four weeks into the Social Innovation lab

We'll let someone else drone on with all of the hump day jokes this time and get straight to our exciting lives!

David Lewis from EMC stopped in and gave us an intense outlook on marketing.  He showed us tools and methodologies of which we will be utilizing soon as we dive into the solution process.

Gretchen Schneider, an architect with deep community values from CDRC (The Community Design Resource Center of Boston).  Her perspective as a mother, Zoo New England member, and architect who has done similar projects in the past was extremely valuable.  

Besides today's visits, we are currently immersed in brainstorming solutions. Soon we will be further distilling our ideas with respect to Franklin Park Zoo and their relative constituents.  

For more information on EMC or CDRC, check them out at EMC.com and http://cdrcboston.org/.

TL;DR: We are lucky to be getting such great input from professionals in all fields. What would you want added to the gorilla or anteater exhibit? What would make you fall in love with these animals as we have?

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We have made it through last week's "fire hose" succession of guest speakers.  This week we have organized, analyzed, managed our information in a way that moves us forward toward our goals. We have developed a working mission statement.

We are improving animal and visitor interactions through animal enrichment and visitor education.

We believe that this statement parallels Franklin Park Zoo's vision as well as our own.  Two themes have emerged; the gorillas are misunderstood and the anteater is boring.  Next week we will be continuing our brainstorming for solutions.  We cannot wait to get into solutions and what sort of crazy things we can surprise Franklin Park Zoo with!

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Hello from 5 of 7 gorillas at the Franklin Park Zoo! Over here at Accelerate's Social Innovation Lab we are focusing on enhancing animal enrichment and visitor education. For the the past three weeks we have been hard at work with research and meeting with professionals from a wide range of disciplines in order to create great ad ons to the gorilla and giant anteater exhibits!

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Welcome tumblr and internet audience! This is a picture shot by one of our fellows of Jockamo from the Franklin Park Zoo.  This summer, our team of six student is working to change the anteater and gorilla exhibit! We are super excited and would love any questions, comments, and suggestions from the community.

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Hang in there Frank! - by Bestman Productions

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The many faces of Monroe by Mark Amancio

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A mother’s day by Ion Moe

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We vote for Imani for mother of the year. After giving birth by c-section and not being with her baby girl for eleven days, she took to motherhood with incredible compassion. You might want tissues nearby for this video.  

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San Diego Zoo Safari Park Celebrates “10 Reasons For Hope” With Edible Ice Sculptures for Gorillas on Flickr.

The gorillas cooled off yesterday with some edible ice sculptures that were filled with special enrichment treats such as yams, papayas, and various browse. The ice sculptures were created by the Park’s nutrition team as a way to highlight San Diego Zoo Global’s “10 Reasons for Hope for 2014” and to continue the weekend-long celebration of Endangered Species Day. Learn more about the 10 Reasons for Hope for 2014 here: bit.ly/1vtDJdA

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By trevorgerzen

Gorilla mother Imani and her baby girl are too cute to handle.

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Conflict Resolution by c-farrar 

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2-year-old Monroe and 5-year-old Frank are always wrestling. Boys will be boys… Photo by Bestman Productions

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By Bestman Productions 

Frank puts an expert move on Monroe.