We face a moment of both historic challenge and historic opportunity. Whether you’re talking about the global financial crisis, rampant inequality, mounting environmental degradation, or the failures of our healthcare and education systems, the stakes have rarely felt higher. Yet these problems have been paired with resounding calls for change, and a deepened sense that we all have a responsibility as individuals to make that change happen.   

Believing that universities can play a powerful role in both helping to solve the problems of today and in building up a generation of leaders that is fully equipped to tackle the problems of tomorrow, we have launched a year-long partnership with four universities – Cornell, Johns Hopkins, George Mason, and the University of Maryland – designed to dramatically improve the changemaking potential of universities and the students, faculty, and staff who occupy them.

Teams of select faculty, staff, and students from each school – chosen for the same creativity and entrepreneurial traits that Ashoka looks for in its Fellows and staff – will work together to create, refine, and implement an innovative plan to strengthen social entrepreneurship teaching, research, and student engagement on their campuses. The end result: a network of campuses that foster a culture of innovation and social change, and a generation of students who will be empowered to test out new thinking, new approaches, and new products and services to tackle today’s toughest global problems.

We’re big believers in the power of storytelling. Join us as we create ours.