Economic Opportunity Lab
The right problem. The right people. The right room.
An Economic Opportunity Lab (EOL) is a collaborative platform that convenes leaders across sectors to identify, design, finance and implement solutions to structural socio-economic challenges.
It is our structured, time-bound approach to gathering the right stakeholders around a defined problem or opportunity, generating intelligence conventional data cannot provide, co-creating solutions, and moving them toward implementation.
Our position
We know how to assemble the right people, knowledge, capital and execution capacity around a specific economic problem to create an opportunity.
What makes a Lab different
Most convenings stop at a statement of the problem. A Lab keeps going until something is owned, resourced and being built.
Not a think tank
A think tank produces analysis. A Lab produces an opportunity, a coalition and a route to implementation.
Not a policy conference
A conference produces recommendations. A Lab produces commitments with names attached to them.
Not a consultancy
A consultancy hands over a strategy. A Lab stays with the work through execution.
Enterprise at the end
Where no vehicle exists to carry a solution, the network can match or build the enterprise that does.
How a Lab runs
01
Pre-Lab
Research, stakeholder scouting and mapping, invitations, briefing packs and methodology design.
- Problem research
- Stakeholder mapping
- Curated invitations
- Briefing and methodology
02
The Lab
A time-bound working session that moves from framing the problem to written commitments.
- Problem framing
- Opportunity framing
- Stakeholder intelligence
- Co-creation
- Opportunity design
- Enterprise matching
- Implementation architecture
- Commitments
03
Post-Lab
Findings and commitments are documented, a dedicated enterprise is triggered to carry the opportunity forward, resources mobilised and implementation tracked.
- Portfolio and dossier
- Dedicated enterprise vehicle
- Resource mobilisation
- Implementation and monitoring
Who comes into the room
Every Lab is co-created across eight constituencies, so no solution is designed about people without them.
01
Public sector
02
Private sector
03
International organisations
04
Supranational organisations
05
Civil society
06
Social enterprises and benefit corporations
07
Epistemic communities
08
The people directly affected
What a Lab produces
Each Lab yields an Economic Opportunity Portfolio built in five layers, plus a register of who committed to what.
01
Opportunity Intelligence
What the room knows that no dataset holds.
02
Opportunity Architecture
The opportunity, structured and sized.
03
Economic Opportunity Portfolio
The set of viable, financeable opportunities.
04
Implementation DossierRestricted
Working detail held for participating institutions.
05
Public Knowledge Product
What we publish so others can build on the work.
Stakeholder Commitment Register
Commitments are recorded and their implementation status tracked after the room empties.
Held anywhere
A Lab can be hosted for a country, a city, a region, an institution, a government, a university, a development organisation, a corporate campus or a major convening — or initiated by CforC.
Physical
Best where trust, candour and relationships are the point.
Virtual
Best where the right people are spread across continents.
Hybrid
Best where a core room anchors a wider circle of contributors.
Editions
Each Lab is documented as an edition. More to come.
In their words
“Co-organizing the Banking, Finance and Investment (BFI) Roundtable with The Connected for Change Global Network (CforC) team, which hosted the Vice President for Africa at Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), was a very productive engagement. The collaboration was highly successful and seamless, achieving swift implementation despite the short turnaround time. We look forward to doing much more together.”
Omowumi Omidiji
Principal, The Concierge Lawyering (The Qatar Advantage)
Host or commission a Lab
If you have a problem worth solving and the standing to bring people to the table, we will build the room around it.
Start a conversation