在福岛核灾害后寻求丰富
By Jay Friedlander, Senior Fellow in Social Innovation and the Sharpe-McNally Chair of Green and Socially Responsible Business at College of the Atlantic. In this post Jay shares more about the work he is doing as a lead faculty member on the HELIO project and the designer of theAbundance Cycle.
In 2011, the Fukushima nuclear disaster revealed a fundamental flaw in the Japanese higher educational system. The siloed disciplines and isolated theoretical training exacerbated the crisis by hindering critical communications between engineers, policy makers and others. As a result, educational reformers set about to create a new type of higher educational institution; one that was both interdisciplinary and focused on combining theory with practice. While reformers could have stopped there, they went further, devising an institution embedded in a local community that would confront another persistent problem: economic revitalization of a rapidly depopulating rural community.
在寻找该企业的典范方面，这些改革者发现了一个高等教育机构，他们寻求复制 - 大西洋（COA）学院。近50年前成立的非常棒的COA，通常被引用most sustainable collegein the United States, was founded on similar principles to revitalize the year round economy of Bar Harbor, Maine. In 2016, a prototype college program was created on Ōsakikamijima with the first students designing the future college. The group was drawn from Japan, COA, Babson, Brown and other schools recognized byAshokaUas being at the forefront of social entrepreneurship education. The program, called HELIO (Human Ecology Lab in Ōsakikamijima), was both a proof of concept and a demonstration of the ways that students could learn through community-based projects in sustainable energy, food systems, design thinking, entrepreneurship and community activism. WithHELIO 2017set to launch, the development of this new college continues.
Throughout the process, the founders and team have sought to create abundance. Not satisfied with solutions that merely created a new type of Japanese higher education, they have woven together economic growth that simultaneously creates solutions to persistent social and environmental issues. In fact, evermore weaving of these pieces together strengthens the fledgling institution, furthering its differentiation and opportunities for success. This new institution of higher learning is growing a system of prosperity for the community, economy and the planet. It is building anAbundance Cycle– a model of growth and innovation for institutions of higher education and entrepreneurs alike that provides a framework for making sustainability strategic. As I continue to present about this model across the world, and write about it in publications fromForbestoTriple PundittoMIT Sloan Management Review, it is incredibly inspiring to see it at work in this rural community in Japan, incorporating sustainability in a way that sparks innovation and transforms the economy while ameliorating wicked problems.