As the head of innovation for the U.S. Census Bureau, Mara Abrams is on mission to bring the 2020 census into the 21st century. In her role as the founder & co-director of the organization’s open innovation lab, Mara leads a nimble team that creates and deploys prize competitions, crowdsourcing, accelerators, design workshops, etc and much more in effort to to increase participation in the 2020 Census; which determines how $700 billion of annual Federal funding is directed throughout the country. Her work history includes inventive stints Nike and Jaguar as well as her own foundation she ran for a number of years, teaching filmmaking to disadvantaged youth. Recorded live at WeWork (We.co/crush), Mara discusses overcoming perceptions, assembling creative minds, and how nearly dying affected her approach to work and life.