IDEAS stands for Innovative Dynamic Education and Action for Sustainability, and is the ELIAS-equivalent program for the Asia-Pacific region. The 2022-23 program will mark the first time ever that this program is being offered beyond the country level to include the whole of the Asia Pacific.

The program is offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and United in Diversity (UID). The ELIAS Australia faculty will be the Australian faculty and hosts for the IDEAS Asia Pacific program.

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In this decade of disruption and transformation, the challenges we face are no longer restricted to single organisations, sectors or nations. Bold, ecosystem-centric leadership across regions is now needed if humanity is to avoid even further ecological, social and cultural/spiritual crises and divisions.

 

What is required are holding spaces - action-learning laboratories - where high-level cross-sector leaders from business, government and civil society/NFP/NGOs are able to come together to focus on common systemic challenges, be inspired by potential solutions, and prototype preferred futures by doing things - by trying things out as part of a supportive, collaborative, and resourced network and environment.

The first lab of this kind was called ELIAS (Emerging Leaders Innovating Across Sectors) offered by MIT and based on the profound awareness-based systems change work of Dr Otto Scharmer (Theory U), Dr Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline; The Learning Organisation) and other faculty. This program inspired IDEAS Indonesia which has now been running on a national level for over 10 years. A similar program has also run in China.

 

In 2018 the inaugural ELIAS program to happen in Australia took place in Western Australia through the Centre for Social Impact at UWA in partnership and collaboration with the Presencing Institute and the Academy for Systems Change. Core Australian faculty include Dr Renu Burr, Bradley Chenoweth, Dr John Stubley and Katie Stubley, together with special guest faculty that include Dr Otto Scharmer, with webinar input from Dr Peter Senge and others.

All of these programs have helped create strong, collaborative platforms and networks for transformative awareness-based systems change in the countries in which they take place. A small first-cohort group of senior leaders have now been nominated to apply for this program and take the next steps of this journey into the greater Asia-Pacific region, and by doing so help co-shape solutions to the many and varied challenges we now face together.

As IDEAS Asia Pacific grows into the future it will help enable the Asia-Pacific region to lead the way when it comes to global contributions to overcoming the ecological, social and cultural/spiritual crises of our time - especially during this crucial decade - and to co-create the renewal and regeneration of civilisation as a whole.

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To find out more about the 2022 program, click here.