First of all, what is Ashoka? Ashoka is a global organization headquartered in Arlington Virginia, USA. It was created by Bill Drayton in 1980. Drayton noticed that in the 1960’s and 1970’s there were many people who were working in India for social change. Drayton envisioned an organization that could support social entrepreneurs in India, so he created Ashoka.

Here is the link for the website for Ashoka Canada. Here is the link for the United States.

Bill Drayton contends that the next major stage for social entrepreneurship is to improve collaboration, according to the book Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Need to Know on page 115. The link takes you to the Canadian site for amazon.ca. I suppose the reason for that is many of the problems we have are complex and require people with multiple skills to tackle.

Who is improving collaboration today? Check out the posts here on MaRS and the Centre for Social Innovation for just a couple of examples.

Ashoka Changemaker Campus

Changemaker Campus is an Ashoka designation that recognizes colleges and universities with a proven track record of campus-wide excellence for social innovation and changemaking. These institutions collaborate with each other and Ashoka to advance social innovation and changemaking across higher education to graduate millions of changemakers. You can go to the Ashoka U Changemaker Campus website and find a few links, one of which is called Becoming a Changemaker Institution. It’s a PDF guidebook with both strategies and actions for educators who are ready to prepare the next generation of changemakers. This “do-it-yourself” guidebook is perfect for anyone interested in harnessing the power and potential of changemaker education at their own institution. Georgian College in Ontario Canada is the first Canadian college to be designated an Ashoka U. There are more than 40 colleges and universities globally that have embedded social innovation and changemaking into their culture, programming and operations.