Upon postponement of our in-person workshops and digitization of many workshops due to COVID-19, PATHWAYS was honored to accept a partnership on a unique project with the Take Hacktion Initiative and Tel Aviv University’s International MA Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation. We collaborated on an online Hackathon for social impact. A Hackathon is a competition built around solving a specific challenge, often via technology or social innovation. This particular challenge centered around PATHWAYS and its ability to bring our experiential programs from the physical classroom into the digital space in response to the pandemic.
THE CHALLENGE:
How can PATHWAYS bring highly experiential in-person programming into a virtual space, while preserving the integrity of the human connection & the negotiation content that is at the heart of all of its programs?
Registration opened on April 19th, with 20 participants from 9 different countries around the globe. They hail from a variety of professional fields, and educational degree levels, including conflict resolution & mediation, business, Law, disaster management & humanitarian aid, political science, psychology, civil engineering, software engineering, philosophy, architecture, and environmental studies.
Teams had one month to submit a proposal that would address the challenge above. They weren’t required to fulfill the project itself, but to create a compelling proposal that addressed any one, or a combination, of the following 3 goals:
- Expand experiential negotiation education to a new virtual dimension
- Find ways to build meaningful cross-cultural connections in a digital space
- Support teachers in their professional capacity to creatively engage students online
The winning team will be invited to collaborate with PATHWAYS to explore which elements of their proposal can be integrated into our programming, and consulted in the process for how best to do so.
After several digital Coffee Corners to network and collaborate, all submissions were in by the deadline of May 17th. Three top finalists were selected by PATHWAYS lead staff and sent for a final selection with our guest expert judges:
THE WINNERS
Honorable mention goes to Jake Shapiro, Dagny Anderson & Krystal Tse for their submission: “Pathways Zooms Online”.
And the winners of the Take Hacktion Online Challenge 2020 are Maggie Cumby, Ana Gutierrez, and Ksenia Miliutinskaia for their JL3B Online Program. This team proposed a thoroughly-considered, 5-day, digital course for high school students using a blend of physical and virtual tools. Their program includes the following highlights: learning kits, a balanced inclusion of simulation and theory, and a unique negotiation game built around household chores designed specifically for their submission.
We are honored and delighted to have the chance to work on this project with the winning team moving forward, as well as with the founder and powerhouse behind the entire Take Hacktion initiative, alumni of the TAU Conflict Resolution and Mediation program, Alex Zaslav. Thank you Alex!