Courses
Foundations of Complexity
If you’re interested in systems or social change, this course will rewire your understanding of the world and how change happens.
If you’re a recent graduate/ in your early career and want to have an impact in the world, this course is ideal for you.
- You will understand how complexity impacts our world and work
- You will learn about the building blocks of effective strategy and the needed resources and relationships for creating change
- You will have a clearer picture of what it takes to embark on the journey of social change
- And you will have the support of our community as you take your first steps
You’ll work on challenges such as:
- Structural racism
- Climate crisis
- Food & Agriculture
- Social housing
- Mental health
- Youth unemployment
- Gender equality
- Artificial Intelligence
Course Schedule
All sessions take place on Zoom at:
- 2 – 3:30pm GMT
- 7:30 – 9pm IST
- 10 – 11:30am EDT
Sessions:
- Session 1 : Getting to know each other and the challenges you are working on
- Session 2 : Introduction to Complexity and Complex Challenges
- Session 3 : Building blocks of an effective strategy and preconditions for action
- Session 4 : Working in cohorts
- Session 5 : Core elements of action, the inner game of a strategic response, and the importance of storytelling
- Session 6 : Working in cohorts
- Session 7 : How resources and relationships shape strategic responses and how we measure impact in complexity
- Session 8 : Working in cohorts
- Session 9 : System change – the mimetic approach
- Session 10 : My work, my challenge, my next steps
Course formats:
Plenary Sessions
Join Complexity University Faculty and course participants from around the globe to explore the theory and practice of working with complexity.
Break-out Sessions
Meet in smaller groups to examine real-world cases of applied complexity, and to reflect on how to apply these practices in your own context.
Community Platform
Collaborative learning and discussion will take place between sessions on a dedicated Basecamp forum throughout the course, and after it has ended.
Course Materials
Available to download – including session recordings, handouts, a completion certificate and a digital course completion badge to display on your social media profiles.
Effort
7.5 hours per week
Your lecturers
Zaid Hassan
Zaid is a strategist, facilitator and writer.
Zaid spent the last 20 years developing responses to complex social challenges around the world for governments, philanthropy and corporations. He has worked on issues such as agriculture, artificial intelligence, climate change, education, energy, financial systems, malnutrition, mental health, security, sustainable development, and youth issues.
Zaid conceived the Gigatonne Challenge after the collapse of the 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen. Since then, he has been leading a team developing Gigatonne as a strategic response to the climate crisis.
Zaid has worked all over the world, with a broad range of clients, including the World Bank, the UN Foundation, WWF, Oxfam, the Governments of Canada, Germany, Liberia, and New Zealand.
Zaid regularly teaches, guest lecturing at universities across the world, including the New School in New York, the University of Bergen in Norway and the University of Oxford. He is the author of The Social Labs Revolution: A New Approach to Solving Our Most Complex Challenges (Berret-Koehler, 2014).
What do other students say about this course?
“There is a gap between knowledge and action and Complexity University has found a way to bridge it. The Foundations of Complexity course gently guides you past the safe knowns and onto the bridge until you start seeing the action you can take.”
“I could die from another webinar about what we need to do. We all know the earth is in crisis and we need to save it but no-one wants to take the time to figure out the ‘how’. I feel compelled to pivot my career towards an impact driven role. Every action I take in my daily life needs to produce an output that contributes to the story I want to tell. What does this action feed into the results I want to create?”
How much does it cost?
This course is offered at a fee of $199 per person.
To ensure that you will be part of a diverse global cohort, we offer scholarships for those who struggle to access the course at the full fee.
Express Interest
Understand complexity, tackling complex challenges and kickstart a career in changing the world