Garance Choko

Garance Choko is the founder and CEO of Coda Societies, a firm that drives the design and development of citizen-centered infrastructures, services and organizations worldwide. She started her career as a concert pianist at a very young age. Later, when she moved to the United States to continue her performance studies, she pursued her passion for public administration and innovation. She earned her Masters of Public Administration from Cornell University. Garance has launched innovation firms, designed and implemented physical spaces, national and local health care systems, nation-wide public administration processes, and labor policies for institutions, corporations and governments in North America, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. She is a proud board member at Sing For Hope.

She was interviewed by Matthew Burkard, Program Officer at the Global Centre for Pluralism on June 23, 2020.

In this interview, Garance reflects on:

• The ideology of spaces and how the way in which different communities have been affected by the pandemic allows them to reveal their identity and social contract to their citizens
• Issues of systemic exclusion, leadership  and learning opportunities for cities
• The role that cities from the global south have played and how they have showcased inclusive responses and innovation
• The meaning of resilience both at the infrastructural and human level, and how shifting from solving for individual resilience to solving for individual well-being can yield powerful change
• The need for diversity in the development of resilient solutions