Changemakers invites you to help the world and its decision-makers choose positive change at every intersection of every field of concern. For this to happen, we all need to contribute by learning about the world around us, spreading high impact innovations, and ultimately taking necessary action to solve complex social problems.

Innovate: Enter your innovation in a collaborative competition

Changemakers holds collaborative competitions on thematic issues to source the most innovative solutions, build a community of solutions, and take high impact innovations to scale.

Each collaborative competition begins with a Mosaic of Solutions that maps the trends of Ashoka’s Fellows and Ashoka's work, outlines the key barriers and insights for a particular problem, and then plots and identifies the most innovative solutions and innovation gaps.

Using this framework, competitors provide a mini-blueprint of their innovations, which are transparently displayed and archived online. Once the entry period closes, a panel of judges uses three criteria—innovation, social impact, and sustainability—to select approximately 12 finalists. From the slate of finalists, the Changemakers community and general public vote for three winners who each receive $5,000.

The competitions offer communities a wealth of additional resources—including ideas, finances, and human capital—to take these innovations to scale around the world.

Collaborate: Take action with innovators around the world

Collaborative competitions are based on the principles that have driven the open source software community. Your participation does not just build the community, it builds global social movements. Competition entries are transparently displayed online for anyone to see and comment on through an online review. Additionally, competitors can revise their entries until the close of the competition. You do not just listen to input from your peers, but you can incorporate input from your peers to present a more powerful strategy. By “open sourcing social solutions™” you can become part of the innovation process and build a social movement. Create your profile now and start meeting other Changemakers today.

Learn: Gain insights to discover the big opportunities and most promising social solutions

The most powerful way to learn is to engage thoroughly and whole-heartedly in an experience or an issue that compels you to ask questions to solve problems.

Changemakers begins this learning and exchange by generating a wealth of materials to ensure that learning and action—social transactions—actually happen. A series of feature articles, a library of resources, and the competition entries themselves accompany each of the collaborative competitions. Moreover, Changemakers compiles journal articles that touch on a variety of thematic issues, geographic locations, and individual Changemakers.

More importantly, Changemakers learns from you—a member of this community of innovators. And Changemakers knows that your experience—your work, questions, and ideas contributed in various ways on this website—will provide the best, most important source for learning and social change that matters.


Enter your innovation, join the community, and build a movement to change the world. Join us now!