What is the Foundry?
The Foundry is an 8-week program designed to equip a cohort of changemakers with the capabilities, tools, and confidence to tackle real social challenges. Cohort members get to build practical skills in:
- Design thinking, through a unique approach built for social impact and honed through years of practical application in the field
- Human-centred research and creative problem solving — framing challenges into hypotheses they can test
- Collaborative innovation with diverse stakeholders, from ideation to solution design
- Innovation design, from prototyping, testing, experimenting, and adapting
Who is this for?
The Foundry is for people with experience in social impact work who want to deepen their expertise in applying design thinking to tackle social challenges. It is designed for practitioners who want a fresh perspective on how they can help address the social challenges they see in their community, and to do so with greater impact. By collaborating with peers from across the region, they learn how to turn ideas into solutions to real social challenges, all while gaining the tools, confidence, and experience to create impact in their own communities once they’ve completed the program.
Why does this program exist?
Over the years, we’ve developed and refined a unique philanthropic model that operates as a venture studio for social impact. Grounded in human-centred design, our Social Innovation Lab brings together diverse venture teams that tackle complex workforce challenges by building practical, scalable solutions designed to connect more people with the world of work.
With the Foundry, we’re sharing our methodology with practitioners around the world, equipping them with the tools, capabilities and confidence they need to apply them in their own organizations and generate even more impact in their communities.
If you’d like to find out more about the next cohort, click here.