A degree to spark imagination
10 October 2020 at 12:00 pm
A new university is aiming to equip its students with the skills to organise change and fight for a fairer world
For many jobs, a university degree is the only way to get a foot in the door.
But with millions across the world facing barriers to tertiary education, AIME Mentoring has launched a different kind of university – one that it says will bring change makers together to learn from one another and build a fairer world.
Jack Manning Bancroft, AIME founder and head of design, said Imagination University will offer degrees in the three most critical skills of our time – imagination, mentoring and organising change – with a vision to make “higher order thinking” accessible to all.
“We open this university to complement the current offerings in the school system and higher education, to bring light, colour and vibrancy into these oft-tired spaces inhabited by teachers and students who are trying their best to meet each other half-way and yet at the same time following the established order because that’s what it has always been,” Manning Bancroft said.
“I think it’s time to reimagine what universities mean, and can be.”
The launch of Imagination University builds on the work of AIME over the past 15 years, offering mentorship and leadership programs for marginalised kids.
Manning Bancroft said that with millions of people around the world now unemployed due to coronavirus, it was important the university was free.
“We’re consciously making it free for all, from five-year-olds to 105-year-olds, because no one should be locked out of higher order thinking anywhere, anytime,” he said.
The degrees are split into degrees for university students to organise change, for teachers to teach with imagination, for executives to fast-track diverse leaders into senior management to level the organisational playing field, and for citizens to use their imaginations to transform their local communities.
The university will commence on 11 January 2021, and will involve a five-day course, followed by a 10-month practical assignment that will build skills in mentoring, imagination, organising change, building bridges, flipping the script, and “hoodie economics”.
You can find out more information on the new initiative here, and applications are open now.
