Created and housed within one of the most diverse cities in the nation, the Innovation Lab provides adult learners with a valuable resource: a community-driven, co-working, and co-learning third-place space with no membership fee. In a city with Arctic temperatures and limited indoor public spaces, the Innovation Lab is highly accessible and welcoming to all.

The initial concept for the space shifted to community needs and continues to grow into a co-working, co-learning, space that provides business, entrepreneurship, and technology information. The Innovation Lab provides users with an “on-ramp” to job skills, work-force development skills, and small-business support, as well as new technology such as 3-D printing. Full-time development and coordination of the space is further enabled by Darla Hane, an Americorps VISTA volunteer now in her second project year with the Innovation Lab.

The Innovation Lab partners with more than 65 local and international organizations, including: federal agencies, foreign consulates, art councils, universities, businesses, incubators, and start-ups. From these partnerships, the Innovation Lab gains strengths in listening to community and providing support in learning. There is concentrated effort to keep the space safe, welcoming, inclusive, and neutral. Embracing Anchorage’s diversity, workshops in the space are initiated, hosted, and taught by community volunteers. Workshop topics include: resume writing; job-interview skills; coding; professional-dress; social enterprise; and financial literacy. Community volunteers also host well-attended creative-economy workshops focused on the business of art, design, and humanities, as well as MakerNites and Bitcoin meetups. Popular events include: Fashion August (The Business of Fashion); Professional-Dress Clothing Swap; and How NOT to Get Hired.