Our purpose
We mobilise and empower
individuals, organisations and communities
to collaboratively tackle our world’s greatest challenges.
Our aims
Empower our community to achieve change
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We aim to empower our community – including alumni, mentors, local stakeholders, educators, and diverse partners – to create lasting positive change throughout their careers. We pursue this by curating connections and activities for our community members as they strive to make a change in the communities they care about.
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Equip students & early-career professionals
We aim to equip students & early-career professionals across disciplines, geographies and cultures with the ability to deploy their knowledge and skills to make a difference. We pursue this by increasing the availability and accessibility of our programs to audiences around the world.
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Enable higher education institutions
We aim to enable higher education institutions and educators to integrate impactful real-world, experiential learning approaches into their curriculum. We pursue this by providing our unique train-the-trainer workshops, and by working with institutions to customise versions of our programs for their contexts.
Our core values
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Humility
Accepting that we don't have all the answers; embracing continuous learning; and always staying open to new perspectives and insights.
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Intentionality
The shared goal of making a positive contribution while being willing to push boundaries with innovative ideas.
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Diversity
Recognising perspectives, insights and ideas from the broadest possible range of people, and collaborating to find everyone's strength within the team and community.
Our origins
We first developed How to Change the World in 2014 as the capstone course for all accredited engineering, computer science and management degrees at University College London (UCL). Today, over 800 students engage with more than 40 partner organisations in the nine day version of the program delivered every year at UCL.
Based on the success of this original program, we were asked to provide our How to Change the World Learning Journey for audiences outside UCL. In response, we developed shorter, more flexible versions of the program for select international partners such as the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the US National Academy of Engineering and the Global Solutions Summit.
Delivering these programs revealed to us and our partners the significant benefits and impact of providing intensive versions of our learning journey for wider audiences. Thus was born our How to Change the World social enterprise, which began delivering our programs to a wide range of new audiences in 2018.