Ashoka’s Changemakers initiative is the world’s first online forum that enables social innovation exchange. Through this “open sourcing” tool, Ashoka supports collaborative competitions that bring together individual social change initiatives from around the globe into a more powerful whole. Participants submit their own ideas, collectively identify the best social solutions, and then collaborate to refine, enrich, and implement those solutions.

The competitions hosted on Changemakers.net are complemented by the Changemakers’s Journal and Library that house stories of successful innovation as well as resources for social practitioners around the world.
Changemakers connects the insights of Ashoka Fellows with the best work in the citizen sector through its two featured competitions:

Are You a Changemaker?

The “Are You a Changemaker?” competition is a tool for finding social entrepreneurs and identifying their projects around the world, advancing and expanding the work of Ashoka’s Venture Program, especially in countries where Ashoka does not have a full time presence.

The competition provides a space where innovative individuals can register their work and participate in online discussions with members of the Changemakers community to advance their thinking and strategies. As the directory of entrants grows, so does the global community of changemakers, shared resources, and peer support.

Changemakers Innovation Award Competitions

Every two months, the Changemakers Innovation Awards recognizes the best social change strategies that emerge from the Changemakers’ open-sourced competitions on thematic issues of global importance. Each competition cycle hosted on Changemakers.net identifies and refines solutions to a pressing global problem.

Finalists of each competition are selected by a panel of expert judges from investor organizations in the relevant field; popular online voting determines the winners. The competition finalists and winners form an ongoing community of social entrepreneurs who will collaborate to support each other’s efforts, continue to map emerging principles of innovation, and help draft advisories for funders and policymakers.

Go to Changemakers.net