Social Innovation in Higher Ed

We’ve set off to attend the annual Ashoka U Exchange. The event has grown each year and now includes over 650 university representatives and students who will convene in Washington D.C. to discuss and learn about how to further social innovation in higher education. The Exchange includes sessions such as “bringing social solutions narratives into the classroom” and “systems thinking for leading changemakers.”

Impact Entrepreneurs’ Director Cindy Cooper will be a featured panelist in Online Learning: Inspiring Stories from the Front Lines, an interactive conversation about triumphs and failures of booming online learning platforms. As a speaker on the panel, Cindy Cooper will share her experience developing a rigorous online certificate in social entrepreneurship supported by the reTHINK: PSU Provost’s Challenge.

Abby Chroman, Project Manager with Impact Entrepreneurs, will moderate Universities as Catalysts for Social Innovation, a presentation featuring two of the 2015 Cordes Innovation award winners that explores how universities leverage existing resources to partner with communities and spark social innovation.

Angela Merrill, PSU’s Changemaker Campus Liaison, is heading to the Exchange to research best practices for catalyzing connections and student engagement across campus.

Certificate graduate and Social Innovation Incubator member Gina Condon, founder of Construct Foundation, will also be attending to participate in the K-12 Changemaker Education track.

Follow @PSUimpact and #Exchange2015 for our real time updates on the speakers, field visits and everything social innovation this weekend and look for another IE blog on Exchange highlights early March.