Future Impact Forum 2024 Recap: Collectively Building Systemic Change

What does it take to create large-scale, systemic change? Large, engrained systems, like a national education system, are exceedingly difficult to shift. This is in part because so many people from so many different backgrounds depend on it. And yet, if we bring together forward-thinking actors from each of those backgrounds, and we unite them around a mutual vision for a better approach, systemic change is entirely within reach.

On July 29^th, Ashoka organized the Future Impact Forum, which convened a group of such forward-thinking actors in Washington, D.C., focused on the education system. Our central question: How can we build an education system that ensures all students (and all teachers!) know that they have the power to be a changemaker for the good of all? (more on what that means below)

Since 2014, Ashoka has been working towards this objective in Brazil and, more recently, Indonesia and Nigeria. In Brazil, we have rallied all relevant actors around this shared goal, including teachers, teachers’ unions, schools, governments, educational publishers and media, students, parents, social entrepreneurs, and the business sector. The result is a nation-wide movement that improves teacher and student experiences, lowers absenteeism, and educates a generation of young people who are more equipped for the collective challenges we face. (Read this case study for more about our work in Brazil’s education system).

What might a similar, country-wide initiative look like in a U.S. context? At the Future Impact Forum, we gathered teachers, social entrepreneurs, business leaders, and impact investors to explore this question. During the meeting, we presented our first foray in this direction: The Changemaker Educator Initiative. In collaboration with Upenn Graduate School of Education and other partners, this initiative will provide an initial 500 educators in D.C. Ward 7 and 8 with an accredited “Changemaker Educator” course in 2024-2025. Participating educators will learn to practice changemaking both at work and at home, encourage students to see themselves as changemakers, and build alliances for systemic changes, such as integrating changemaking education into the official curriculum.

Building a Shared Agenda

The Forum brought together relevant ecosystem partners and funders for this initiative. Collectively, we explored its potential and a more long-term vision of what it will take to shift the larger D.C. and U.S. education system. Three key insights came out of these conversations, which will form the starting point of a shared agenda:

• Collaboration is key. As we have seen in Brazil, lasting systemic change requires the active participation of all relevant actors. Governments and regulatory bodies are especially important, as they set the parameters within which all other actors operate.
   
• Students need teachers who have agency. Agency is critical to being a changemaker for the good of all. This is true for students, but also for teachers. Teachers want to be people who do things, rather than people whom things are being done to in which they have no say. Too often, the latter is the case. Addressing this is critical: If teachers don’t experience agency in their work, they pass this on in the way they teach their students, reinforcing top-down control rather than encouraging bottom-up creativity.
   
• Young people already are changemakers. Being a changemaker means knowing that you have the power to do something about a problem you observe and can have an impact on what your environment looks like, no matter how large or small. This requires empathy, creativity, thinking in solutions, and other skills that each young person possesses naturally. What they need is an environment that encourages these skills and behaviors, rather than suppress them – and an environment that allows teachers to approach their students in this way.

Next Steps

We are looking forward to several next steps in the coming months:

• Implement the initial Changemaker Educator Initiative in D.C. Ward 7 and 8
• Raise the necessary funding for next phases and expansion of this initiative
• Bring regulatory bodies into the conversation
• Explore similar initiatives in other U.S. metro areas

Our next D.C.-based Future Impact Forum will be held on February 3^rd, 2025. In it, we will report progress on the initial Changemaker Educator Initiative, explore what next phases may look like, bring additional partners to the table, and continue developing our shared agenda.

Are you interested in joining this initiative, as an ecosystem partner or funder in D.C. or beyond? Contact Njideka Harry for more information and an exclusive invitation to the February 3rd Future Impact Forum.