La Nube

Even though civic education and problem solving skills are key for the formation of active citizens that are committed to their communities. The ecuadorian educational systems does not teach these abilities in the national curriculum therefore limiting the students and citizens potencial to resolve the most pressing issues in their communities. This has been a cyclical problem, these skills are not taught now and were not when today educators were students. So we have an educational system that is not keeping pace with the demands of XXI century society and as a result 217k educators that cannot teach a set of skills that they are not equipped with to their 4.3M students. (INEC, 2019) 

Schools in Ecuador can over-protect their students by limiting their capacity to upfront, propose and implement solutions to problems in their communities. It is also true that students' voices with the purpose of contributing are not heard as they are undermined because of their age. In 2017, Unicef did a study about youth and participation. It concluded that 46% of young people believe that their opinion is not taken into account by adults. Regardless, students experience the same problems as every other citizen do, they can have a unique and fresh perspective that can be valuable in addressing complex social problems. Students must be seen as agents of change in their communities, capable of making significant and valuable contributions to improve the quality of life for all

Therefore, it is important that schools and colleges provide opportunities for students to get involved in social and community projects, where they can put their skills and knowledge into practice to address pressing problems in their communities’. In this way, they will be able to develop civic and leadership skills, which will allow them to be and grow into active citizens. 

The lack of teaching civic skills in most schools, coupled with teachers' limited exposure to these skills, creates a cycle where the skills are not taught or passed down to the next generation.In addition, many design thinking resources are only available in English, which limits access to these materials for Spanish-speaking schools and educators. Without access to these resources, it is difficult for Latin American schools to implement design thinking methodology that fosters social-emotional and problem-solving skills in students.

However, there is hope. The Design for Change framework, which uses design thinking to ignite empathy, creativity, and collaboration skills in students, has been shown to be effective in K-12 schools. An experimental study conducted by the Harvard Graduate School of Education found that the framework helped to improve these skills in children who participated in the process. Design for Change has also been recognized as one of the top education innovations for its scalability and impact by HundrED for four years in a row. By implementing the Design for Change framework in schools, Latin American students and educators could develop problem-solving and civic skills through student-led civic actions.

In Ecuador, we have created and enhanced a pedagogical experience to certify teachers in the Design Thinking methodology with the international partnership of Design For Change. We initially offered it to high and low-income private schools (through a cross-subsidization model), but we knew that we must reach the most needed: teachers and students from rural and low-income public schools. 

Since 2022 we have been working closely with the Ministry of Education of Ecuador, improving the national curriculum by introducing our design thinking framework in K-12 state education. We train and mentor educators to prompt bottom-up transformation that transcends their classrooms into effective students-led actions in their communities, schools and neighborhoods. 

When teams of students and teachers have implemented their initiatives, we encourage teachers to share the resulting projects with the GOAT Awards. GOAT Awards is the first social innovation festival that gives visibility to and rewards projects undertaken by teachers and students in Ecuador. Winning projects access seed capital for scaling and the opportunity to represent our country in international events powered by Design for Change. Last year we received 144 projects led by teachers and students from 14 different cities on topics ranging from security in schools to the mental health of teenagers, from avoiding dropouts of girls in schools to recycling.

With the intention to cost-efficiently expand our intervention to other underserved geographic areas of Ecuador and as grantees of the Crew for All's Crew for Technology Grant. We developed a massive open online course with an adapted version of our Design Thinking certificate course to meet the needs of teachers from other sectors with internet access and named La Nube. We will sell the course to private actors that can afford it to reach Diseña Futuro's sustainability and give it out to public teachers. 

La Nube is a seven module certification on Design Thinking directed to teachers, where they will implement the methodology for the generation of student-led innovative projects inside or outside the classroom. Recently we are in the pilot of the mooc. We are testing the effectiveness of the course in the implementation of the design thinking process with 20 teachers. 

The online design thinking course aims to serve the teachers and students in Ecuador who are currently underserved in terms of access to civic education and problem solving resources as design thinking in our educational system. In particular, the target population includes teachers and students from rural and low-income public schools, who may not have access to the necessary resources and training to develop problem-solving and civic skills.

Through the implementation of the Design for Change framework, La Nube seeks to provide teachers and students with the necessary skills to initiate bottom-up transformations in their classrooms and communities. This will enable them to identify and address pressing social issues, and to make meaningful contributions towards improving them.

By offering a certification program as an online course in Design Thinking methodology, Diseña Futuro aims to provide access to these resources to a wider audience, including private actors and public school teachers. This will help to ensure the sustainability of the initiative, while also expanding its reach and impact. Ultimately, La Nube aims to empower teachers and students to become active citizens and agents of change, capable of making a positive impact in their communities.

Diseña Futuro is a civil society organization founded to improve Ecuador's social mobility by developing its people's creative agency through design, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. In 2017, Diseña Futuro became the partner of Design for Change and acquired the design thinking methodology applied in education. The same one we have been enhancing and practicing alongside teachers of diverse contexts since day one.  

In 2022, the Ministry of Education of Ecuador evaluated the program of Diseña Futuro, aligned it to their national plan, and approved our intervention to reach the public education system. We agreed to provide an 80-hour Design Thinking course to at least 120 teachers over two years. We have directed this opportunity to elementary and middle school teachers (grades 5-8) from three provinces that already attempt to implement project-based learning as suggested by the curriculum in the Proyectos Escolares ('School Projects') subject. This means that Diseña Futuro impacts teachers of private schools as the ones in public schools.

For the development of the mooc in 2022, Diseña Futuro ran an investigation where we got 2 main insights in which we base La Nube. Teachers prefer to have hybrid and dynamic formation courses inside their work hours, rather than in their free time. Reason why we decided to implement, one on one sessions after modules are finished with the teachers is so we can elaborate on any unresolved questions. Teachers tend to be more interested in courses that receive a certificate or certification if they finish successfully because this could open the door for better job and salary opportunities. In our mooc, when teachers successfully complete the course they are certified as mentors in design thinking applied in education.

Solve is a program that seeks to support innovative and impactful solutions to global challenges, and La Nube is one of this. We want have an agremeent with MIT Solve that allows us to get in contact with parterns that helps acquire funds to get this solution to untap communities of Ecuador. 

Now a days we have a agremeent with the Ministry of Education, so we are going form 120 teachers in design thinking in 2 years, but we can doble or triple our impact with the preper recaudation of funds. 

Solve with help us to increise our impact in x10 in fast foward way reaching educators and students from untapped communities

La Nube is innovative because it addresses the problem of limited civic education and problem-solving skills in the Ecuadorian educational system by providing a comprehensive solution that involves teacher training, curriculum enhancement, and student-led civic actions.

It is unique in that it leverages the Design for Change framework, which has been shown to be effective in K-12 schools for fostering social-emotional and problem-solving skills in students. This framework is adapted and implemented in the Ecuadorian context to create a pedagogical experience that certifies teachers in Design Thinking methodology. Diseña Futuro’s solution also takes a bottom-up approach to transformation, where teachers and students work together to identify and address pressing problems in their communities. This empowers students to become agents of change and active citizens, contributing to the improvement of the quality of life. The GOAT Awards, which recognizes and rewards successful student-led civic actions, further incentivizes teachers and students to participate in the process. By creating a massive open online course (MOOC) called La Nube, solution that is accessible to a broader audience beyond the initial target group of high and low-income private schools. By selling the course to private actors, we are also creating a sustainable model for the fundation Diseña Futuro, which can help to expand the intervention to other underserved geographic areas of Ecuador. La Nube has the potential to catalyze broader positive impacts from others in this space by inspiring other organizations or educational systems to adopt a similar approach to civic education and problem-solving skills. It can change the market by creating demand for Design Thinking certification and training for teachers, which can improve the quality of education and empower students to become active citizens in their communities.

This first year we are testing the effectiveness of the online course 20 educatorns. We are running test of comprehension of test, appliance of the methodology in class, iniciatives created, prices educators are ready to invest for education in design thinking. So with that data we can redesign our MOOC and it is ready for the massive launching after August of 2023

We are reaching out to MIT Solve to scale our project "Design Thinking for Educators: promoting the design thinking mindset in the public education system of Ecuador" in the short run. This project aims to develop the creative potential of 1240 public teachers to propose project-based solutions to community problems and strengthen 21st-century skills (from which 1,000 will be online and 240 in-person) in the next 2 years.

In five we want to x10 our current all time impact 1195 educators until 2022. By continue to have an excelent realtion with the Ministry of Education we can reached those untapped comunities around Ecuador

In the long run, we expect to inform the national government about the successes and opportunities for improvement of our intervention so they can make evidence-based decisions on this subject. This means affecting policy priorities on education. We are currently leading the Research Committee of Design for Change Global, creating tools to evaluate and learn more about our impact. The committee has members from Oxford University, and we have a quantitative and qualitative toolkit developed by members of the London School of Economics that we would like to put into practice. However, we cannot afford the operational costs of the evaluation. We will use part of this fund for this. 

Hundreds of thousands of teachers in Ecuador hold the potential to guide their students in resolving the most pressing problems in their communities but they need the opportunity to develop it. We continue our efforts so people can one day improve their lives through their creative power and, with your support, this can have a national and sustainable impact.

Problem: The Ecuadorian educational system does not teach civic education and problem-solving skills in the national curriculum, which limits the potential of students and citizens to address pressing issues in their communities. In other words this means that the education students receive do not develops the abilities or skills necessary for being cases of ascendant social mobility, especially in vulnerable context. 

Inputs:

• Design for Change framework, a proven design thinking methodology that fosters empathy, creativity, and collaboration skills in students.Partnership with Design for Change to offer teacher certification in the methodology.
• Support from the Ministry of Education to introduce the design thinking framework in K-12 state education.
• Crew for Technology Grant, allowing for the development of a massive open online course (MOOC) to reach more teachers.
• GOAT Awards, a social innovation festival that rewards projects undertaken by teachers and students in Ecuador, providing seed capital for scaling and international representation opportunities.

Outputs:

• Certification of teachers in Design Thinking methodology.
• Bottom-up transformation through student-led actions in communities, schools, and neighborhoods.
• Winning projects recognized and rewarded through the GOAT Awards.
• Full Development of a MOOC called La Nube to provide more access to the Design Thinking methodology.

Outcome:

• Development of problem-solving and civic skills in Latin American students and educators through the implementation of the Design for Change framework.
• Increased involvement of students in social and community projects, allowing them to make valuable contributions to improving the quality of life for all.
• Improved national curriculum through the introduction of the Design Thinking methodology.

Result:

• Active citizens committed to their communities, capable of addressing pressing issues and promoting positive change in their communities.
• A more responsive and effective educational system that teaches vital problem-solving and civic skills to its students.
• Long-term social impact through the empowerment of youth and the promotion of bottom-up transformation in Latin America.

La Nube aims to address the lack of civic education and problem-solving skills in the Ecuadorian educational system. It proposes to introduce the Design for Change framework, which uses design thinking to ignite empathy, creativity, and collaboration skills in students. To implement this framework, Diseña Futuro has created and enhanced a pedagogical experience to certify teachers in the Design Thinking methodology in partnership with Design For Change. The massive open online course named La Nube trains teachers to implement the methodology and generate student-led innovative projects in or outside the classroom.

The core technology behind our solution is the application of science and evidence-based knowledge to the practical aims of human life to benefit educators and students. We use technology to make your solution accessible to underserved geographic areas of Ecuador and reach sustainability by selling the course to private actors and giving it out to public teachers. The technology you use includes coding and online platforms to deliver the course.
In the same way La Nube becomes a professional Network, where educators can share their experiences and insights in the process of learning and aplying the methodology of design thinking.

Diseña Futuro is a foundation form by 3 full time people and 2 half time. We have meetings weekly were we talk about work and updates but also about our personal life. It is important to motivate this spontanious moments of sharing because people work better if they know and trust each other, trust that can only be shelter in a comfortable and free enviroments.

In the same way we know that team is everthing. As individuals we grow as much as the other grows to, expanding their habilities means a team that come ups stronger and more prepare for challengues like MIT Solve. 

We are a pretty young team, we have Julio and Daniela who are 25 years old, Dani who is 35 years old and a mom of 3 mini agents of change in their community, Sebastián who is 22 and just finishing his univeristy studies on January 2024. We help them wih flexible hours so he can attend both school and work, we motivate him a lot to apply to internacional scholarships and myself Pamela. I am 28 years old and with Julio we created the foundation Diseña Futuro in 2017 and we have not stop growing since. Inviting some incredible agents of change to joint the journey of mutiplicating the opportunities that were once given to us, and it results education is a perfect highway for that.

Diseña Futuro is a civil society organization founded in 2017 to improve Ecuador's social mobility by developing its people's creative agency through design, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. 

In Ecuador, we have created and enhanced a pedagogical experience to certify teachers in the Design for Change methodology. We initially offered it to high and low-income private schools (through a cross-subsidization model), but we knew that we must reach the most needed: teachers and students from rural and low-income public schools. Paradoxically, in our country, the less favourable, the ones that rely the most on their abilities to succeed, receive the lowest quality of education.

Diseña Futuro is financially stable with the cross-subsidization model. Most of our financial stability comes from selling our services to different private enterprises and elaborting projects with them. 

Crew for all Grant was a technlogy grant. They helped us with mentoships to develop the MOOC. 

In 2022, the Ministry of Education of Ecuador evaluated the program of Diseña Futuro, aligned it to their national plan, and approved our intervention to reach the public education system. We agreed to provide an 80-hour Design Thinking course to at least 120 teachers over two years. We have directed this opportunity to elementary and middle school teachers (grades 5-8) from three provinces that already attempt to implement project-based learning as suggested by the curriculum in the Proyectos Escolares ('School Projects') subject. 

The 120 teachers are divided into four cohorts of 6 months each. One of the cohorts has already started with support from private enterprises and international NGOs. We have landed $24k of investment from the private sector such as The Young Living Foundation, Terpel, and otehrs has enable us to organize the first open contest of innovation and start training the first cohort of teachers from 33 schools in October 2022. For the subsequent cohorts, we intend to expand the number of impacted teachers per cohort agreed upon with the Ministry and scale this opportunity to other territories to reach untapped audiences from underserved communities.

In the middle of this, we wanted to cost-efficiently expand our intervention to other underserved geographic areas of Ecuador. As recent grantees of the Crew for All's Crew for Technology Grant, we developed a massive open online course with an adapted version of our Design Thinking certificate course to meet the needs of teachers from other sectors with internet access. We will sell the course to private actors that can afford it to reach Diseña Futuro's sustainability and give it out to public teachers.