How to Change the World
at Together 2018

The Programme: #HtCtW at Together 2018

On Sunday 4 November 2018, participants in the How to Change the World (#HtCtW) programme at Together 2018 will begin their experience with an immersive, full-day experiential education programme. Assembled into small diverse teams with new colleagues from different disciplines and sectors, participants will be guided by an internationally experienced teaching team through a design studio tackling broad, open-ended (aka ‘Wicked’) societal challenges built around one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Each challenge will be brought to life for participants in a specific global context, and explored through the programme’s intensive interdisciplinary, problem-based learning process. Supported by expert coaches and mentors, as well as online materials provided ahead of the programme, participants will discover how the distinctive interests and expertise of their team might be deployed to create positive change on their challenge. 

On Monday 5 November, HtCtW participants will take part in the full-day Together 2018 Symposium. Participants will be prepped on Sunday, and supported by coaches throughout the day on Monday, to maximise the integrated learning they receive from the Symposium and HtCtW programme.

On Tuesday 6 November, HtCtW participants will take part in Together 2018 Workshops and exclusive HtCtW Sessions that bolster and consolidate their learning. These HtCtW Sessions will focus on how participants can translate and mobilise the knowledge and skills they have gained into concreate action plans they can take back into their communities and professional lives.

HtCtW @ Together 2018 will be led by the co-creator of the How to Change the World programmes at University College London, Dr Jason Blackstock… who also happens to be an Alberta-born Canadian!

Who should attend HtCtW?

This How to Change the World programme is ideally suited for early-career* professionals and entrepreneurs, as well as graduate and upper-year undergraduate students. It is aimed at participants who have (or are developing) their own areas of expertise,** and who are interested in exploring how to leverage that expertise to create positive societal change. 

HtCtW is particularly valuable for participants who aspire to develop innovative solutions to tackling societal challenges. The programme is structured to enable participants to generate and exchange numerous entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial ideas that could sustainably generate positive societal impact, and — more importantly — to learn and practice the skills and tools needed to replicate that experience in other environments.

* Typically within the first ~10 years of your professional career (though we regularly have participants with more experience participate and report significant benefit from the programme).

** The programme is designed to accommodate a wide range of professional and academic expertise (e.g. engineering, business, law, science, social science, humanities).

Why attend HtCtW?

You should attend HtCtW @ Together 2018 if:

• You want to develop an expanded understanding of how you — in collaboration with a diverse range of new colleagues — could leverage your expertise and interests to effectively address the UN Sustainable Development Goals within your professional context and/or community.

• You want to learn or practice skills and tools needed to map the complex social, technological, economic and political dimension of ‘Wicked’ societal challenges.

• You want to learn or practice skills and tools for devising entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial, interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral ideas for sustainable change within your organisation, industry or community.

• You want to gain unique, CV-enhancing experience working intensively with a diverse team of new colleagues to devise ideas that could sustainably tackle targeted aspects of ‘Wicked’ societal challenges.

Background of How to Change the World

How to Change the World (#HtCtW) began in 2014 as an addition to accredited Engineering and Management undergraduate degrees at University College London (UCL), one of the World’s premier universities. This unique experiential course was originally developed to complement these already technically-robust degrees in response to growing demand from employers and graduates. While professional expertise of course remains important for employers (regardless of discipline), over the last two decades demand for early-career professionals who are more than just technically strong has risen dramatically. Today, established industries and especially entrepreneurial environments are seeking individuals able to effectively blend their own professional expertise into interdisciplinary, often cross-sectoral teams, in order to collectively tackle highly complex challenges in the real-world. Yet this type of experience is all too rare within academic or even professional educational environments. Enter the HtCtW course at UCL.

Now run annually at UCL as a two-week intensive course for over 700 students, HtCtW has become the Capstone course for these undergraduate degrees. With its unique experiential learning pedagogy integrating problem-based learning and real-world scenario challenges, HtCtW develops invaluable complex problem-solving and interdisciplinary teamworking skills now in unprecedented demand within our economies and societies. A video describing the UCL course in more detail can be found here.

Owing to the success of the UCL programmes, since 2016 the HtCtW pedagogy has been converted into standalone professional education programmes that are now run regularly for global networks such as the G20 Young Global Changers, and as part of international conferences organised by institutions such as the UK Royal and US National Academies of Engineering. Since its inception, HtCtW programmes have reached over 3,500 participants, and featured over 100 high-profile partners organisations including: UN Habitat; the World Bank; the Red Cross Climate Centre; the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change; the UK Department for Transport; Practical Action; Buffalo Grid; Pump Aid; and the Overseas Development Institute.

This programme as part of Together 2018 is another example of our aim to share the empowering educational experience of How to Change the World with expanding networks around the world dedicated to creative positive and sustainable societal change. We hope to see you at How to Change the World @ Together 2018!

For more information about HtCtW @ Together 2018, or How to Change the World programmes more generally, you can email us here.