History
“College students are hungry to be part of something larger than themselves, to engage in meaningful work that they believe can make a difference in the lives of those around them and, in the process, in their own lives. Ashoka offers this opportunity through social entrepreneurship. Ashoka is enabling students to participate in improving their campuses and the communities that surround them.”
—Tom Ehrlich
Sr. Scholar, Carnegie Foundation for Teaching and Learning
Former President, Indiana University
Ashoka’s stake in higher education: The idea for Ashoka U emerged from the realization that 2,500 Ashoka Fellows were not going to be enough. With the rate of global change on exponential rise, we need more than just professional social entrepreneurs – we need competent changemakers across all of society.
Ashoka envisions an Everyone A Changemaker™ world: a world that responds quickly and effectively to social challenges, and where each individual has the freedom, confidence and societal support to address any social problem and drive change. Ashoka strives to shape a global, entrepreneurial, competitive citizen sector: one that allows social entrepreneurs to thrive and enables the world‘s citizens to think and act as changemakers.
Given higher education‘s central role in knowledge creation and student learning, Ashoka recognizes colleges and universities as key strategic partners in reaching our vision.
About Ashoka U: Since 2005, Ashoka U has been at the forefront of the academic field of social entrepreneurship, co-founding the first comprehensive and global association of faculty and institutions working to advance the field. Ashoka U builds on the ground work laid by the University Network for Social Entrepreneurship, a partnership between Ashoka, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, the EMES European Research Network, and the Social Enterprise Knowledge Network.
About Ashoka: Ashoka is the global association of the world‘s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system changing solutions for the world‘s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, we have elected over 2,500 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in 70 countries. With our global community, we develop models for collaboration and design infrastructure needed to advance the field of social entrepreneurship and the citizen sector. Our Fellows inspire others to adopt and spread their innovations – demonstrating to all citizens that they too have the potential to be powerful changemakers.
