Create human-centered change toward a better tomorrow
THE DESIGNERS OF TOMORROW FELLOWSHIP
A new kind of grad school
We believe that each of us can begin working on the challenges facing our world, today.
And, we’re committed to helping those ready to take the first step to build the skills, experience, and mindsets they need to accelerate change against today’s complex, and evolving challenges.
The Designers of Tomorrow Fellowship is a one year learning program at the intersection of human-centered design and social change — helping changemakers unlock the power of design to co-create solutions with their communities. Fellows gain real world experience with three challenging field experiences, work on self-directed assignments across five core subjects, and practice moral leadership.
The next cohort launches September 2020.
HOW WE GOT STARTED
2 strangers. 12 months. 7000 miles from home. 1 question: what happens when we stop waiting for permission to create change?
In 2016, after a series of rejections from grad schools and jobs in social innovation, we decided to take control of our learning & accelerate our career as changemakers by designing our own education at the intersection of design and social change.
We called the experiment the DOT Project, and it’s now the blueprint for our flagship program, the DOT Fellowship — where we’re committed to making it easy for anyone to start creating change in their communities, regardless of whether they have the “right” degree, job, or status.
It’s also the foundation of our commitment to accelerating positive change that puts people first.
HUMAN-CENTERED CHANGE WORK
The smallest voices can often make the most meaningful contributions to change.
Our work is grounded in human-centered design (HCD) – an approach to problem solving that invites the people closest to the challenges we’re working on to co-create with us and arrive at solutions that truly stick and scale.
We pair the mindsets and methods of HCD with deep ethnographic research to understand the challenges and the systems that surround them, a focus on strategy and execution to deliver tangible outputs, and good storytelling to attract resources and public engagement.