What is the Design for Change competition?            

Design for Change is a world-changing school contest for children that is simple and powerful in it's design.

Children are given a simple task: design a solution to a problem in your community and make it happen! "Take one thing that bother's you, take one week, and change a billion lives" in the words of Kiran Bir Sethi, the founder of Design for Change. The children follow a four stage process of 'Feel, Imagine, Do, Share', and the purpose is to:

• Remind children that they matter and their ideas are worth sharing.
• Allow them to discover that they can be leaders of change.
• Listen to children around the world saying "I Can!"

The contest is designed to be flexible and 'teacher friendly' allowing each school to design it's own project, in it's own way, to fit with school terms, holidays, and other curriculum demands.

 What's unique about Design for Change?                     

There are a lot of educational programs and extra curricular competitions out there that are absolutely brilliant, and long may they continue! However, we believe that the Design for Change competition is unique in a myriad of ways.

It challenges children in a way that no other program does, allowing them to both learn AND teach in the process, providing a timely reminder to older generations who have fallen too easily into the habit of accepting things the way they are. Children go through a process that allows them to put themsleves in other people's shoes, and see how they themselves can make a positive impact on the world around them. Not only do they see HOW they can go about this, they actually DO and deliver on it, hlighlighting for them the immense power of the possible.

In short, it has the ability to infect them with the 'I can' bug, and we think that's something pretty special.

On top of all this, children all around the world are taking the exact same competition as them, and sharing their stories with them. We can think of no better way to create a community of global citizens than for kids all over the world to learn about each other, through the unrivalled medium of shared experience.

 How did it all begin?                                                              

The contest began in India in 2009 at the Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India. Incredibly, the contest reached 32,000 schools.

Riverside School's Founder and Head Teacher Kiran Bir Sethi was invited to speak about the project at the TED India Conference in November 2009. This presentation sparked a global response and Design for Change Contests are now being held throughout the world, with more countries and regions signing up every week. Find out more by checking out the Gobal Web Site.

 Bring on the learning revolution!                                         

Ken Robinson believes that a learning revolution(not just a reform) is needed in the world of education, and we believe the Design for Change competition is the first step towards bringing this revolution about in Primary schools. Check out his speech on the subject below, inspiring stuff!