Educating for Impact
Dedicated to Advancing Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Bertha Centre Programmes
Systems Change and Social Impact
Application Deadline: 15 February 2021
Course starts: 01 March 2021
In the context of an unprecedented global pandemic, Systems Change has become increasingly topical. Rather than assume to fix a problem in isolation, Systems Change is the collection of frameworks, tools, and theories that are applied to transform the system that creates it.
As the pandemic surfaces brutal societal inequalities, governments, economic sectors, health systems, and communities are struggling to balance the pursuit of meeting urgent needs while ushering in sustained change into the future. Systems Change and Social Impact is a specialised online short course, convened by the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT GSB, designed to give public officials, leaders of social enterprises, founders and funders exposure to the most recent developments in how to bring about sustained positive change.
This interactive course equips participants with the tools and frameworks to navigate complexity and strengthen their capacity for transformative leadership and collaboration. It promotes local and global networking amongst change-makers and provides a unique community of practice that will serve participants far beyond the duration of the course.
Course FAQs
This interactive eight-week course offers a rich learning experience that blends theory and practice as well as off-line and on-line learning.
Participants will have the opportunity to listen to pre-recorded lecture sessions on the core topics when it is most convenient to them and then during designated class times, they will then virtually engage with the speakers from those videos in large and small group discussions. Additionally, there will be a set of “deep dive” sessions around specific cases or niche areas of interest that participants will have an opportunity to choose. Participants will watch the short videos prepared by practitioners for these sessions, which are designed to drill down and apply concepts to their real-world experience.
Core Topics Include:
- Fundamentals of Complexity in Theory and in Practice
- Understanding Foresight/Futures thinking for Systems Change
- Building Partnerships & Collaborations for Systems Change
- Building Advocacy strategies for Systems Change
- Innovative Financing
- Organisational change for Systems Change
- Strengthening systems sensibilities for systems work
Deep Dive Sessions include: Building strategies within organisations; creative advocacy strategies; unusual partnerships/collaborations; inscaping and social innovation; and inner work.
Which days & times of the week should be blocked out to attend the sessions?
- Pre-readings: reading / video viewing / audio preparation for each week consists of approximately 1.5 hours per week
- Assignments: submission of assignments/participation in discussions 2 hours per week
- Virtual Class Sessions (2hrs) per week from 3pm SAST / 9AM EST to 5 pm SAST / 12PM EST.
- Weekly Mentorship Circle (30mins) per week from 8am SAST to 9am SAST.
How many hours per week will be dedicated to the course?
- 6 hours in total
Will the course be synchronous/asynchronous?
- Asynchronous parts: Pre-readings and assignments
- Synchronous parts: Orientation Week, Virtual Class Sessions and Mentorship Circles
What percentage of the course will be self-directed learning?
- 70%
What are the rules for certification?
- 80% attendance of both mentorship circles and virtual classes
- 80% completion of assignments
R14 000.00
Course date: 1 March - 3 May 2021