This workshop series took place on five Fridays from 23 September to 21 October 2022.

Co-organized by the Vancouver Design Nerds, University of Toronto Scarborough, University West, Stellenbosch University, and Participedia, the Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation (GCDI) brings together students from multiple global locations in a real-time collaborative online forum for cross-cultural engagement and global learning, rooted in design thinking. This series was framed around practically engaging with the concepts of democracy, sustainability, and inclusion. We asked participants to explore their positionality and locality as they developed group project proposals to be showcased at the end of the course. Participants were empowered to leverage what they learned in the classroom to address real-life issues.

This event incorporated design thinking to facilitate interdisciplinary student exploration and collaboration, project development, and problem-solving. It consisted of one activist engagement session, two facilitated design workshops, and one showcase workshop. Between design workshops, students worked together in small global teams to expand and test their design ideas.

Global Classroom organizers held office hours with each group and provided guidance and feedback to help students prepare to present their work. Groups presented their projects to faculty and civil society collaborators during the final showcase for real-world feedback.

Download the summary report here.

If you would like to learn more about our work, partner with us in our future projects, or collaborate with us to develop one of your own, please don’t hesitate to contact us!