When you join #ChangeTheNow, you will enter into a global community of virtual changemakers, championing real-life positive social change in their local communities. Your goal will assemble an #ChangeTheNow Innovation Team and then chart your own changemaking journey, in bringing a social innovation idea to life.
Welcome Ashoka Changemaker Campus
Join us, a community of global Changemakers, working together to create the positive changes we want to see.
An Invitation to Join #ChangeTheNow
In 2018 Georgian College, Canada’s first Ashoka Changemaker College, wanted to know if they could mobilize students from kindergarten to Post Secondary into a movement, effectively building a region of Changemakers. It was from here that #ChangeTheNow began.
Do Good to Do Well
#ChangeTheNow was created on the beliefs that small acts can lead to big change and collaborations can turn into largescale movements. We believe together students’, educators’ and communities’ ideas can spark systems shifts that make will make our communities greener, healthier, safer, stronger and more inclusive!
Will you join us in creating the positive change and contribute to 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals?
Join a Community of Changemakers
Recent Activity
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Create Your Team Canvas in Inclusive Design and Mobility Challenge - SDG #11, Winter 2023 2023-01-02 20:17:07 -0800 create_your_team_canvas_sdg11_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Create Your Team Canvas in Reducing Food Miles & Waste Challenge - SDG #13, Winter 2023 2023-01-02 20:16:46 -0800 create_your_team_canvas_sdg13_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Complete Your Mobius Strip Reflection in Promoting Wellbeing Challenge - SDG #3, Winter 2023 2023-01-02 20:03:13 -0800 complete_your_mobius_strip_reflection_sdg3_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Complete Your Mobius Strip Reflection in Inclusive Design and Mobility Challenge - SDG #11, Winter 2023 2023-01-02 20:02:54 -0800 complete_your_mobius_strip_reflection_sdg11_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Complete Your Mobius Strip Reflection in Reducing Food Miles & Waste Challenge - SDG #13, Winter 2023 2023-01-02 20:02:38 -0800 complete_your_mobius_strip_reflection_sdg13_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Reducing Food Miles & Waste Challenge - SDG #13, Winter 2023 in Start a Challenge 2023-01-02 19:54:44 -0800 reducing_food_miles_waste_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Inclusive Design and Mobility Challenge - SDG #11, Winter 2023 in Start a Challenge 2023-01-02 19:52:43 -0800 inclusive_design_and_mobility_challenge_sdg_11_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Promoting Wellbeing Challenge - SDG #3, Winter 2023 in Start a Challenge 2023-01-02 19:50:42 -0800 promoting_wellbeing_winter_2023
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Ryan Vandecasteyen published Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 in Start a Challenge 2022-09-23 11:02:16 -0700 climate_action_challenge
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Anonymous published Complete Your "ME=WE" Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 10:58:07 -0700 complete_your_me_we_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Complete Your "HCDT Stage: Pitch" Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 10:53:03 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_pitch_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Complete Your "HCDT Stage: Prototype & Test" Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 10:48:47 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_prototype_test_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Complete Your "HCDT Stage: Ideate" Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 10:44:39 -0700 _complete_your_hcdt_stage_ideate_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Complete Your "HCDT Stage: Define" Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 10:09:49 -0700 _complete_your_hcdt_stage_define_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Complete Your "HCDT Stage: Empathize" Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 10:06:14 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_empathize_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Complete your Changemaker in Residency Week Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 10:02:49 -0700 complete_your_changemaker_in_residency_week_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Create Your Team Canvas in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 09:59:34 -0700 create_your_team_canvas_sdg13_2022
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Anonymous published Complete Your Mobius Strip Reflection in Climate Action Challenge - SDG #13, Fall 2023 2022-09-23 09:54:43 -0700 complete_your_mobius_strip_reflection_sdg13_2022
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Deb Friel posted in "Climate Action Challenge – SDG #13, Summer 2022" 2022-08-05 17:09:00 -0700 complete_your_me_we_reflection_27
🤔 Reflection question
After completing CTN, what new awareness do you have for yourself (ME) and your community (WE) and what is one action you might take to continue to explore it?
Deb's Answer
Even as an individual I have the power to make change. We are all part of a global collective and the small impacts we may have each can contribute to the greater achievements to reduce greenhouse emissions and address the climate crisis. By increasing the awareness in our networks at the 4 levels we can spread this impact as a ripple effect. Despite time zone differences our group made the effort to really drill down into the issues and examine our stakeholders to develop something to help with this impact, which is achievable and sustainable.
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Deb Friel posted in "Climate Action Challenge – SDG #13, Summer 2022" 2022-08-05 17:05:30 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_pitch_reflection_27
🤔 Reflection question
What did you learn about publicly sharing your ideas that you will carry with you in your future of work?
Deb's Answer
The pitch was a great experience to showcase our learnings from the course from ideation to prototype and discuss the journey and the possibilities for the future. Critical feedback from the audience was great to refine and help modify our ideas. The opportunity for continued collaboration is a key outcome for me and for both institutions to be an active participant to reach "Drawdown". The prototype APP really serves to increase awareness and participation while implementing education and behaviour change concurrently.
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Deb Friel posted in "Climate Action Challenge – SDG #13, Summer 2022" 2022-08-03 13:30:27 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_prototype_test_reflection_27
🤔 Reflection question
How might the prototype & test stage help you with overcoming a fear of failure or challenging your assumptions about what is ‘right’?
Deb's Answer
https://app.uizard.io/prototypes/Ewy5Zaxxpgc4qQQ4zngM/player The team brainstormed to the idea of an app aimed at students, staff and partners of CQUniversity. When we considered the nature of the issue, and the need to invert the participation and reporting from just the leadership (with little information trickling down to users) to students staff and partners being actively involved the app served to meet the needs of stakeholders and provides a simple and accessible mechanism which already has high usage amongst these cohorts and can feed data upwards. This definitely overcame the fear of "what to do" and motivated us to then explore potential content to feed data upward to meet the needs of the wide range of stakeholders involved in our HMW question.
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Deb Friel posted in "Climate Action Challenge – SDG #13, Summer 2022" 2022-07-28 14:07:34 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_ideate_reflection_27
🤔 Reflection question
How might ideation help you develop your active listening skills to brainstorm and reflect on ideas effectively with your team?
Deb's Answer
This was the fun part! Applying the tools - Iceberg, 5 why's and the Fast Idea Generator really worked as a brainstorming exercise to dissect the complexity of the problem and help us ideate some creative solutions. Achievable and realistic to meet the needs of our stakeholder groups without being overwhelmed by the issue.
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Deb Friel posted in "Climate Action Challenge – SDG #13, Summer 2022" 2022-07-28 14:04:21 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_empathize_reflection_27
🤔 Reflection question
After learning about how to empathize with the people affected by your SDG’s social issue, how you might apply empathy to working with the members on your CTN Innovation Team?
Deb's Answer
We are a team of three, all working full time and with family and study commitments and all at differing levels in our learning journey. Identifying our stakeholders and applying the empathy map to them als gave us the opportunity to appreciate the individual contributions to the #CTN Challenge we are working on across our different time zones and interpretation of the issue. Supporting each other using the Team channel, chats, email and zooms we have worked together as team to complete our project (almost there!).
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Deb Friel posted in "Climate Action Challenge – SDG #13, Summer 2022" 2022-07-28 13:53:58 -0700 complete_your_hcdt_stage_define_reflection_27
🤔 Reflection question
How might you explain the value of you having a systems-thinking mindset when attempting to define and understand a complex problem?
Deb's Answer
The systems thinking approach helped us understand the complexity of the problem, and provided a "map" to understand the stakeholder point of view ad design a solution which is simple but addresses the needs of those impacted by the complex problem. It a way of orienting your thought processes and working through the problem instead of trying to solve it with a single answer.