Learning to profit from change

“We have more technology than we know how to use today,” says Saul Kaplan, who has been head of the nonprofit Business Innovation Factory (BIF) since departing as the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s chief in December. “The problem isn’t technology, the problem is us humans – we’re stubbornly resistant to change, and the organizations we live and work in, whether public or private, are also stubbornly resistant to change.” Kaplan, above with Melissa Withers, BIF executive director, hopes the five-year-old nonprofit can help develop solutions. “BIF is a laboratory for social innovation,” Kaplan says.