Blog

Welcome to the Office of University Initiatives Blog, an online journal that allows our office to share and reflect on our work at ASU.

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Solutions to Solutions? Just maybe...

In providing an environment where individuals can showcase or interact with ideas, the 10,000 Solutions Project is part of a growing community of challenge platforms. Since its inception, 10,000 Solutions has also prompted many valuable debates regarding the design of an initiative that aims to be accessible and impactful. For instance, is it better to ask broad challenge questions—or specific ones? Or, how can ideas or individuals with solutions be connected to people who can help make them happen?

Kickstarting Campus-Specific Collaboration

This past Monday, Changemaker Central at the Polytechnic campus launched their first campus-specific collaboration initiative. This meeting was comprised of individuals representing faculty, staff, students, academic and non-academic units at the Polytechnic campus.

Not your typical sandbox

What do uncomfortable handgrips on crutches, unemployment, and catching a chill all have in common? Student entrepreneurs developed solutions to these challenges (and many more) through the Merrimack Valley Sandbox’s Campus Catalyst program.

Changemaker Partner of the Month - Valley of the Sun United Way

With the end of this semester quickly coming upon us, it is also time for the final Changemaker Partner of the Month – Valley of the Sun United Way (VSUW).

Civic Engagement and 10,000 Solutions

On April 12th, I had the opportunity to attend Arizona’s Youth Town Hall on Civic Engagement. The event brought together over 150 college and high school students at ASU’s Downtown Campus to discuss solutions and ideas about increasing civic engagement amongst youth. The day began with speakers from local colleges, civic engagement organizations and elected officials.

Mixing it up, Changemaker Style

It feels like yesterday the Changemaker Central team was officially launching and I was running around Phoenix and beyond trying to make it to each campus’ opening celebration in one day, a great feat that has yet to be repeated.

10 Days of 10K Challenge

Last week, the Polytechnic Changemaker Central held an ice cream social to celebrate the campus’ involvement in the 10 Days of 10K Challenge and to promote Changemaker Central. This challenge was created to increase engagement in the 10,000 Solutions competition. 10,000 Solutions Project ignites the power of collaborative imagination to create a solutions bank. Users can share their ideas to impact local and global communities as well as build on others’ ideas.

Do you haiku?

I intended to follow-up to my last post about community building in the Community Solutions course and at the Ashoka U Exchange before the end of March, but March has been filled with: writing a large grant proposal, advising the Ignite @ ASU student organization for their event on April 4, reading all three books in the Hunger Games series (not part of my job, but worth noting), and preparing for my new role as Interim Executive Director of UI.

Snapshots of a Site Visit

In February 2012, ASU hosted the 2nd annual AshokaU Exchange. AshokaU focuses on driving colleges and universities everywhere to become more innovative and entrepreneurial through the institutional change efforts of a campus change team. I have the great honor of serving as a member of ASU’s team for creating change and the exchange planning team.

Learning About Digital Learning

During my time as an 8th grade math teacher with Teach For America, I was consistently looking for ways to engage my students and enhance their learning using technology. This struggle to integrate technology resources in the classroom is something that many teachers deal with in schools throughout the country. So since becoming a grad student here at ASU, I’ve been trying to learn more about blending learning, open source materials and the world of education technology.

Delve into '12

In my next few entries I will report my progress on my New Year’s resolution to help build supportive communities in 12 different settings in 2012.

1. Community Solutions and Collective Impact (setting: classroom)

Engaging with Ashoka Fellows

The prevalence of media and information and the “overload” that comes with it, is perhaps nothing new. Yet, as the article from Stanford points out, the question remains of “How do you curate all this information?” In addition to that vexing question, now there is also an increasingly international bent of all this new information, with people all over the world becoming not only information consumers, but also producers.

Echoing Green

Recently, 10,000 Solutions became a Search Partner of the Echoing Green Fellowship. I think this is an exciting partnership, as both 10K and Echoing Green help bring visibility and support to people trying to come up with solutions to some of our most pressing issues in our local and global communities.

Science Fiction as the Conscience of Science

Earlier today Slate Magazine ran an article I wrote as part of its Future Tense channel, a collaboration between the magazine, the New America Foundation and ASU. The article discussed Ridley Scott’s new documentary series:

Entrepreneurial Happenings in Detroit

Over Thanksgiving Break, I had a chance to fly home to Michigan to spend time with friends and family. While my intention was to “unplug” for a while, my visit to Detroit ended up becoming a pseudo-business trip (in the best way possible), as I had a chance to spend some time with friends involved in the social entrepreneurship and innovation scene in Detroit.