Partner globally to advance educational excellence locally.
Experiential learning. At scale. Online.
How to Change the World spun out as a social enterprise from University College London (UCL). Today we provide experiences for higher education leaders, educators and students to help transform careers for a sustainable future.
Experiential Student Programs
Our flagship programs are experiential online Bootcamps and Courses for students and early-career professionals. Every program brings together hundreds of students from dozens of institutions to tackle real-world challenges with our global network of community leaders and experts. (see more detail below)
Educator & Leadership Experiences
We complement our student-focused programs with unique fellowships and experiences for educators and leaders from our higher ed partner institutions. These opportunities provide colleagues with invaluable learning and networks for advancing educational excellence within their institutions. (see more detail below)
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Some of the companies represented within our community:
Some of our current and recent higher ed partners:
The Student Experience
During our Bootcamps, students from across disciplines, institutions and geographies work together in small teams within larger cohorts. Each student team identifies, and then tackles, a focused problem within the broad sustainability challenges faced by a real-world community. Along the way, teams engage with local community representatives and globally diverse experts, and are supported by an experienced teaching team. At the end, each team produces a multimedia summary of their work, and are interviewed by academic and industry experts.
All students receive Digital Credentials and the opportunity to attend on our our unique "Careers Nights" – and ‘winning’ teams receive additional experiential prizes!
"equips students with the knowledge and skills needed to tackle real-world sustainability and innovation challenges."
4th Year Software Engineering Student
The Educator Experience
One of our aims as a social enterprise is to support our higher ed partners with expanding their ability to deliver exceptional experiential learning. Our Experiential Educator Fellowship provides educators at all stages of their career with a unique professional development opportunity. The Fellowship includes formal training on pedagogical frameworks and practical methods for designing and delivering experiential learning, both at scale and online, through asynchronous materials and a live virtual training workshop. Once the training how been completed, Fellows are invited to join one of our teaching teams for an experiential teaching & learning practicum; and there are regular Fellowship events to promote community and knowledge exchange.
The Leadership Experience
Another aim as a social enterprise is to support higher education leaders as they seek to explore, advance and share new educational approaches – especially those that provide real-world experiential learning for students. Both our Global Leadership Network (open to senior leaders, such as Deans, Provosts & Presidents) and our Global Curriculum Network (open to Associate Deans and equivalent) are designed to provide unique global exposure and collaboration, including direct engagement with corporate and industry leaders.
Why we're currently focused on sustainability
Since 2017 there has been a 36x increase in companies setting sustainability targets. Unfortunately, only 17% of these companies say they have employees with the skills they need to start even making progress towards reaching these targets, meaning that up to 150 million employees will need to learn sustainability skills within the next decade. (BCG 2023) Meanwhile, an additional 395 million new jobs could be created by 2030 if companies prioritise the ‘nature-positive’ solutions we know are needed. (WEF 2020)
Students want to learn sustainability skills
Given the accelerating demand for sustainability and green skills, it's no wonder that 84% of higher education students want much more sustainability knowledge and skills provided throughout their courses, and 70% want more sustainability-focused experiential learning! (SOS 2021; Yale 2022) The green transition is an opportunity for the next generation to make its mark building a more sustainable and equitable world!
Closing the sustainability skills gap
Students have the passion and drive to tackle sustainability challenges and help companies achieve their targets, but they need experiential opportunities that provide the mindsets, frameworks and skills – as well as hands-on experience – that companies are looking for.
Our Bootcamps equip students to make a positive impact through practical, real-world experience. We link this with our Experiential Educator Fellowship to support our higher education partners with their efforts to provide more opportunities throughout their courses and programs for students to tackle real-world sustainability challenges.
Learn more about our vision, mission, values and origins as a social enterprise here.
We also deliver credit-bearing courses in partnership with many higher ed partners. While we recommend that new partners start with our extracurricular Bootcamps and Educator Fellowship, you are welcome to book a call with us to learn more about our credit-bearing courses.
Our Credit-bearing Courses
