School of Possibilities
Youth-centered initiative using generative AI to reimagine education
The School of Possibilities is a pioneering initiative codesigned with high-school students, using generative AI to reimagine education in Romania. It is a playful engagement and listening tool where students can talk to “school agents” such as textbooks, teachers, exams, gradebooks, brought to life by generative AI chatbots, fostering the imagination of a reformed education system.
Developed with students, School of Possibilities is shaping new practices for amplifying youth voices and holding institutions accountable for listening to them. Created by the Youth Data Collective in 2023, we are an international group of scholars, technologists, designers, organizers, artists, and active high school students dedicated to using data to cultivate youth wellbeing, belonging, and a supportive school environment in Romania and around the world. Stewarded by SDGCoLab, with partners including Cluj County Students Council, Engagement Lab at Emerson College, AVA Research, RAD, Uskov Attorney at Law. Funded by Fondation Botnar.
OurCluj Urban Living Lab
Activating values of trust and care in urban transitions
Intermediary cities comprise 40% of our urban population and are the world’s fastest-growing urban areas. While cities occupy less than 2% of the world land area, they contribute 60% to the global economy, and also 2/3 of greenhouse gas emissions. These cities have become agents of change as they often seek to implement radical and innovative policies for social, economic, and infrastructural demands that come with rapid growth and a need for a shift towards wellbeing economy. Young people living in these cities initiate important conversations on crucial issues, mobilize change and hold their governments accountable. Youth-centered cities hold great potential for innovation towards regenerative future.
We are stewarding youth-centered cities through OurCity global initiative for youth wellbeing and systems transformation. By catalyzing collective multi-stakeholder action with care, we build trust to address needs and opportunities towards the creation of city commons. A long-term commitment funded by Fondation Botnar in several cities around the world.
The Lancet - Transforming Youth Engagement
The Lancet Commentaries
The world currently has the largest generation of youth in its history, with more than half the global population younger than 30 years. 90% of people aged between 10 and 24 years live in low-income and middle-income countries, where health and social systems are the most vulnerable. If we continue to fail to include the next generation of young leaders as equal partners in policy and practice, the Sustainable Development Goals will remain just that—important, yet ultimately unrealized, goals.
SDG CoLab is taking the lead in encouraging those in power to engage in participatory manner with young people for sustainable change. We are leading a series of commentaries in The Lancet on the urgency for transforming youth engagement for sustainable systems transformation.
Wellbeing System Map
Participatory design of a wellbeing map for city's young residents
Together with over 40 local stakeholder in Cluj-Napoca, we mapped what influences wellbeing of youth people in this vibrant multi-cultural city in Romania. An interactive map is avaialble in Kumu, along with a presentation.
This participatory system map revealed strong interdependences between varios factors that influence wellbeing of the city’s young residents. To improve their wellbeing we cannot optimize the isolated factors or nodes, (e.g. school infrastructure), but we need to improve the relationships between these factors (e.g. support for teachers, attitude of parents towards schools, learning opportunities outside schools).
Futures of Communities
The Futures of Communities
The Future of Communities creates a wellbeing society through conversations, knowledge sharing and collaborative practices with the power of communities. We combine the fields of science and economics with methods from spirituality and artistic practices to contribute to an emergent change in society.
The initiative emerged in 2023, following the encounter between Fritz Hinterberger and Barbara Bulc at the inaugural Wellbeing Summit in Bilbao. It was inspired by the social research study and book, Activating Values in Urban Transitions, authored by Barbara with Eric Gordon in May 2022 and extensive work by Fritz about the wellbeing economy. Joined by artist and researcher Simona Koch, and in 2024 by Daniel Gratzer, the founder of the flourishing society in Vienna.
Art4Action
Art4Action
Art drives social change. It helps us reimagine solutions, connect with each other, and builds trust. Art and culture are essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, yet they have not been highlighted or included in any substantial way. We believe that Art has the unique ability to create sustainable change as it creates a space for open dialogue and builds a connected global community.
Our Art4Action initiative creates new spaces and dialogue for to build trust, agency and systems change. We connect visionary artists, collectors, and cutting-edge cultural institutions with scientists, policymakers, innovators and businesses to collectively raise awareness and mobilize new thinking and action for emerging future.
Mindful Eating
Mindful Eating to Transform Food Systems
Everybody eats. Food and nutrition play a critical role in ensuring peaceful, secure and healthy individuals and societies for our sustainable future. Mindful eating is a rapidly emerging field in sustainable food systems. It encourages us to become conscious of what and how we eat, and how this impacts our health and the environment we live in.
We are raising awareness about mindful eating for the well-being of people and the planet to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. We are engaged in food systems dialogues to bring solutions around mindful eating to the foreground of the current global conversation on healthy eating and sustainable food systems.
NextGen Business
Partnerships in Global Health
Traditional concepts of public-private partnerships in health and sustainable development are failing us. They need to evolve into functioning ecosystems of diverse partners that deliver products, services, and financing solutions in a sustainable way.
Our NextGen Partnership initiative convened business leaders at Harvard to shape new learning about multi-stakeholder partnerships for a sustainable future. It aimed to develop new courses to equip future leaders and change makers with emerging practices how to transform shared value mindsets into business strategies and identified priority focus areas in health that lack convergence of resources, approaches, and incentives for accelerated impact at global scale.