How does craft intersect with innovation today, and how are organizations supporting those who generate ideas to improve our daily life? From the industrial scene to our homes, craft practitioners have been challenging notions of hand making, material knowledge, and risk-taking.

As makers continue to further their skills, we see broader investment in collaborations incorporating handmade techniques that inform advanced technology leading to revolutionary interdisciplinary results. Artisans Asylum and Society of Arts and Crafts leaders share how their organizations plan to serve as a platform to create access to building communities and contribute to envisioning and making a more sustainable future through craft and innovation.

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Society of Arts and Crafts is a non-profit organization that has been celebrating makers and their creativity since 1987. SA+C embraces crafts and innovation, striving to provide a platform to collaborate with, support, and promote artists and their craftsmanship and to engage a vibrant community that appreciates the value of crafts. Gary Roberts, President at SA+C, brings extensive experience as a leader, educator, and craft collector. Gary's professional and volunteer career includes being the previous Director of Faculty and Research Services at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Assistant Provost for Academic Affairs at Tufts University, and several positions at Harvard University. Gary has also served as the chair of the Medford Arts Council.

Recently relocated from Somerville to Boston, Artisans Asylum is an inclusive, non-profit community maker space offering affordable studios, shared workshops, classrooms, and communal spaces used by artists, makers, entrepreneurs, and students. Antonio Viva, the Executive Director, is an educator, and researcher artist, who joined the organization after his 12-year tenure as the Head of School at Walnut Hill School for the Arts. A lifelong diversity practitioner, his commitment to diversity, inclusion, and justice dates back to his early days as a public-school art educator.