Gabriella
Gómez-Mont
Founder and Principal at Experimentalista, Amsterdam, NL
Gabriella Gómez-Mont is the founder and director of Experimentalista, a novel type of nomadic and creative office specialized in cities – and that constantly shifts shape to accommodate high-level, transdisciplinary collaborations across the world. She was also the former Chief Creative Officer of Mexico City, and the founder of Laboratorio para la Ciudad (2013 – 2018), the award-winning experimental arm and creative think-tank of the Mexico City government, reporting to the Mayor.
As director of the Lab she headed a young, transdisciplinary team: from urban geographers, political scientists and civic tech experts, to artists, historians and philosophers. The Lab was created to tackle urban challenges – from experiments in democracy and mobility to projects related to spatial justice, play as a city making tool; new models of dynamic governance and civic tech platforms etc – creating novel transdisciplinary methodologies and participatory practices, exploring ways to find common ground in a gargantuan, diverse (and often divided) city.
Besides her fascination with all things city, Gabriella is a journalist, visual artist, and director of documentary films, as well as a creative advisor to several cities, universities and companies. She has received several international recognitions for her work in different fields.
Gabriella is a Yale World Fellow, TED Senior Fellow, MIT Director´s Fellow, Georgetown University Visiting Fellow, Canadian Urban Institute Senior Fellow, Institute for the Future Fellow, a Salzburg Seminar Fellow, a Fabrica Alumni and a World Cities Summit Young Leader. Gabriella is also part of the international advisory committee for the Mayor of Seoul on Social Innovation, as well as NACTO’s Streets for Kids, The XXII Triennale of Milan, C40 ́s Knowledge Hub, Harvard`s Mexican Cities Initiative, Canada's MaRS Lab, NYU´s Gov Lab, University of Michigan, and Nesta’s research on the Future of Public Imagination.
She has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, NYU et al, and given talks around the world at conferences such as The Atlantic ́s + Bloomberg ́s CityLab (at three different editions), The Obama Foundation Inaugural Summit, Moscow Urban Forum, Skoll Social Innovation Forum, NESTA, TED, UCLG Mayor ́s International Summit, The USA Mayors Network, SxSW, C2, World Bank, IDB, Brookings Institute, Rockefeller Foundation, Festival of Ideas, Sydney Creative Summit, among others, many times with Mayors (and on occasions with former Presidents, such as President Obama) in the audience.
Gabriella was born in Mexico City and is now living between Mexico City and Amsterdam, NL.