RECODE Collaborate & Sara Taaffe
Over the last 8 months, Sara Taaffe, SAP and UNB Alumna, PDC Social Innovation Intern, along with two other students, Tom Ebeyer of Wilfrid Laurier University and Nadia Credico of Queens University, spearheaded a new project: RECODE Collaborate.
RECODE Collaborate seeks to challenge the status quo. The mission is to provide student led opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration, in order to cultivate sustainable solutions for contemporary complex problems. The current structure of higher education breeds competition, and leaves little to no room for authentic collaboration. Diversity of perspective is a necessary component to the process of, and solution to, multidimensional challenges. The RECODE Collaborative seeks to break competitive culture, allowing students to realize their full potential while engaging with the complex problems of our generation.
This project is part of the J. W. McConnell Foundations RECODE initiative, whose mission is to fuel more social innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education. RECODE Collaborate came to fruition at the RECODE launch this past January in Toronto where 18 Canadian higher education institutions were each represented by two faculty and a student. Over the course of the gathering, some of the students had come to recognize the lack of collaboration and overwhelming sense of competition both on campuses and between universities and colleges. With a passion to increase multidisciplinary problem solving and social innovation through a national network, RECODE Collaborate was created.
The launch of this project will be September of 2015, running for one full academic year, with hopes to grow further the following year. There will be 10 universities and colleges participating in the inaugural year, one of which being the University of New Brunswick.
To take part in the conversation, follow @letsRECODE and #RECODECollaborate on Twitter or view our website, www.recodecollaborate.ca.
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