Center for Accelerating Innovation (CAI)

Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement in an Ever-Evolving Environment

In late 2019, the Center for Accelerating Innovation (CAI) hosted an in-person State Innovators Forum, which convened the emerging cadre of State department of transportation (DOT) Innovation Officers to share their experiences, challenges and struggles in a relatively new job position. Looking to build on the success of this event, CAI planned a sequel Innovation Forum to be hosted by the North Carolina DOT in June 2020, but needed to employ the essential skill of being nimble to quickly redesign and conduct the event for a virtual setting.

Among the creative hallmarks of the virtual forum was the use of an “open” agenda, where the participants picked the discussion topics among a list of themes such as risk management, fostering and sustaining the culture, and telling your story. This format provided the creative space for more than 20 Innovation Officers to address the issues most important to them. It also helped ensure their full investment in the discussions, as compared to a more linear method of conducting peer-to-peer events.

CAI also helped the Utah and Michigan DOTs plan and facilitate their respective June and August 2020 innovation peer exchanges. More than ten different States attended each event to share how their innovation programs are structured; describe notable practices for communicating innovation success stories; discuss ways to engage their State Transportation Innovation Council (STIC); and identify their top challenges in advancing a culture of innovation.

Through these events, two important lessons became evident:

• First, despite some understandable early concerns about how effective a new model for peer-to-peer events would be, it was found that virtual delivery can be quite engaging when both hosts and participants lean into the format and use creativity when planning the time. Using a participant-driven agenda, icebreakers, polling tools, trivia challenges, and short “exercise breaks” all help combat screen fatigue in this environment.

• Second, the stage CAI set with their initial earlier Innovation Forums quickly led to the Innovation Officers becoming a self-sustaining community that maintains regular contact to support and mentor each other. For example, the Idaho Transportation Department hosted a research and innovation peer exchange in September that advanced and expanded on the topics discussed at the previous events.

Making colleagues and co-workers more aware of issues and being accessible to each other to lean on helped sustain the STIC/Innovators Network. The ability for not only the CAI team, but also its cohorts in the field, to pivot into a virtual meeting environment demonstrated the resiliency and tenacity of this group. Through the challenges-turned-successes in 2020, the CAI team and its partners experienced growth and opportunity through a virtual environment. Now, the team can reach and connect more innovators, making more technology transfer connections than in the past.

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Every Day Counts Round Six (EDC-6) Summit Goes Virtual

Each two-year round of the Every Day Counts program has traditionally featured regional summits to provide transportation agencies with key information they need to identify the innovations of most benefit to them, and to share information and lessons learned through peer to peer engagement. By switching gears from in-person regional events to a virtual setting, the Center for Accelerating Innovation broke new ground in a variety of ways with the rollout of EDC-6.

In September, the formal launch of EDC-6 occurred with a first ever Executive Session. This hour-long event featured FHWA executive leadership and pre-recorded remarks from the Secretary of Transportation. Additionally, representatives from three of FHWA’s key stakeholder organizations engaged in a panel discussion about how the innovations resonated with them and their constituents, and captured the sentiment that EDC-6 would promote Innovation for a Nation on the Move.

Later, the December 2020 Virtual Summit, conducted over three consecutive days, provided attendees the opportunity to learn more about each EDC-6 innovation and included several dynamic new features that brought a fresh energy to the program rollout.

Whereas the previous regional summits all followed the same agenda, the EDC-6 Virtual Summit was organized around three themes under which the seven innovations fell, with a different theme explored each day:

The three themes were People, Products, and Processes.

The FHWA Deputy Administrator Mala Parker, Executive Director Tom Everett and Director of Field Services-South Derrell Turner, along with Iowa DOT Director Scott Marler, Arizona DOT Director John Halikowski, and Anne Ellis, Executive Director of the Charles Pankow Foundation, led the opening sessions focused on each of the three themes–people, products, and processes.

The Summit also included a pavilion showcasing the EDC-6 innovations as well as those from EDC-4 and EDC-5 to continue awareness about those initiatives. A second pavilion showcased “home-grown” innovations that State Transportation Innovation Council (STIC) members across the country developed and implemented. Attendees were able to celebrate and share these innovations, facilitating the goal of widening their use and maximizing their benefit.

The greatest impact of the EDC-6 Summit was the significant rise in stakeholder engagement. In past EDC rounds, approximately 1,300 participants historically attended the in-person regional summits. In 2020, more than 600 attended the virtual Executive Session in September, and more than 3,000 registered for the Virtual Summit in December. Post-summit metrics indicate that more than 1,800 participants stayed engaged for over two hours in each day’s virtual events. As a result, a far wider audience of transportation leaders and practitioners gained awareness of the EDC innovations and learned about other innovations and success stories from the most diverse group of stakeholders ever assembled at an EDC event to date.

The EDC Virtual Summit Lobby where attendees were able navigate to all of the content for the Summit.

Review the Executive Session.

Review the Virtual Summit and access the available on-line content.

Read about how FHWA’s Resource Center supports EDC innovations in the field.

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State Transportation Innovation Councils in the Driver’s Seat for Innovation

The Center for Accelerating Innovation administers the State Transportation Innovation Council (STIC) Incentive program, which provides resources to help STICs foster a culture of innovation as a standard practice in their States. Each fiscal year the program funds up to $100,000 per State to support or offset the costs of standardizing innovative practices for a State transportation agency or other public sector STIC stakeholder. In FY 2020 44 STICs received a total of $4.13 million to implement 75 individual projects.

Many of these awards advance the innovations highlighted in the fifth round of the Every Day Counts program (EDC-5). Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) proved to be the most popular topic, including awards to Alaska DOT&PF to Streamline Horizontal Infrastructure Monitoring with Unmanned Aircraft and Machine Learning, and to South Carolina DOT to develop a DOT-specific UAS flight simulator and a flight proficiency exam.

Advanced Geotechnical Exploration Methods (A-GaME) was another popular topic, with awards to the Michigan DOT to host training and a peer exchange supporting deployment of cone penetration testing, and to the New Hampshire DOT for development of a Geotechnical Manual to document and standardize the use of A-GAME.

2020 also saw STIC Incentive awards for activities and initiatives outside the EDC portfolio. For example, the Pennsylvania DOT plans to pilot Augmented Reality in a transportation setting; Virginia and New York are implementing rolling density meters for pavement quality assurance; and California and Kansas are hosting innovation showcase events.

The National STIC Network Meeting was held April 23, 2020. View the meeting recording.

Review a complete list of STIC Incentive awards and other accomplishments from the National STIC Network.

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