Young people in a workshop, one hand raised, an adult listening.

We can’t do this alone. It takes a village to raise a child.

A fairer society becomes possible when more people develop the skills and have the opportunities to help shape it. Education lays the foundations—in families, in early childhood settings, at school and beyond. We bring together people from education, civil society, business and government to develop education projects, build networks, test ideas and learn through working together.

Initiatives & Projects

Our work connects different settings, people and approaches. Each line represents one of these perspectives. Where lines intersect, you can explore the projects that bring them together. Select two lines in the network or using the buttons—or open a project directly.

Explore projects directly

Was steht da?

Collective Action · Early Childhood Education

More than 68 organisations across Austria work towards shared goals for early literacy through the Was steht da? network. We co-founded the network with Christine Nöstlinger’s Buchstabenfabrik and coordinate its ongoing work, helping organisations share knowledge and align their efforts.

wasstehtda.at ↗

Involved: Christine Nöstlingers Buchstabenfabrik

Transiti:ON

Early Childhood Education · Social Innovation · School

Transiti:ON is an innovation process around the move from kindergarten to primary school, which we are shaping together with Teach For Austria and wirkt. It starts with conversations with parents and a survey on starting school. Building on these, we develop solutions in workshops with experts that support families in this phase, and we support their piloting.

teachforaustria.at ↗

Involved: Teach For Austria, wirkt., FFG

SOS-Herzkiste

Social Innovation · School

With the SOS-Herzkiste (heart box), SOS Children’s Villages brings empathy, emotional resilience and a good classroom climate to lower secondary schools, as a package of materials and workshops. It came out of a design thinking process that we ran with SOS Children’s Villages staff and external experts.

sos-kinderdorf.at ↗

Involved: SOS-Kinderdorf

Future Learning Lab

Collective Action · School · Business

Austria’s first Future Learning Lab stands on the campus of the University College of Teacher Education Vienna (PH Wien). It is the result of an innovation sprint with international IT companies, which we facilitated on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Families and Youth.

fll.wien ↗

Involved: Austrian Federal Ministry for Families and Youth, PH Wien, A1, FLiP – Erste Financial Life Park, Samsung, IBM, Apple, Magenta Telekom

Education Lab Venture Fellowship

Social Innovation · Organisational Development

Together with wirkt., we support non-profit education initiatives in Vienna in focusing and increasing their impact. In the Education Lab Venture Fellowship, they get a tailwind for their next steps.

edlab.at ↗

Involved: wirkt.

Education Map of Austria

Collective Action · School

Across Austria, associations, initiatives and organisations create educational opportunities. Our Education Map brings these programmes together, helping schools find relevant opportunities and organisations discover one another’s work. We build and develop the platform in dialogue with the organisations featured.

bildungslandkarte.thethingswelearn.com ↗

Solve for Tomorrow

School · Business

Through Solve for Tomorrow, students in their third and fourth years of Austrian middle school develop solutions to problems in the world around them—from initial idea to prototype. We deliver the international education programme in Austria with Samsung Electronics Austria, supporting classes throughout the process.

solvefortomorrow.at ↗

Involved: Samsung

Wiener Bildungsversprechen

School · Organisational Development

With the Wiener Bildungsversprechen (Vienna Education Promise), the City of Vienna wants to give all pupils the best possible education, regardless of their background, first language, place of residence or their parents’ income. We support school development at Viennese schools and help schools become learning organisations.

bildungsversprechen.wien.gv.at ↗

Involved: City of Vienna, Education Lab

Vorlesenachbarschaft Am Schöpfwerk

Community & Neighbourhood · Collective Action · Early Childhood Education

At Am Schöpfwerk in Vienna’s Meidling district, reading aloud is to become a matter of course: with reading sessions, parent education and women’s circles, until the neighbourhood sustains the programme itself. We are building this reading neighbourhood, the Vorlesenachbarschaft, together with the association STARTKLAR, funded by the FFG.

verein-startklar.at ↗

Involved: STARTKLAR, FFG

Wiener Bildungsnachbarschaften

Community & Neighbourhood · School

In the Wiener Bildungsnachbarschaften (Vienna Education Neighbourhoods), parents run their own education projects around their children’s school. We developed and implemented the initiative with Teach For Austria, supported by Teach For All and the MEGA Bildungsstiftung.

teachforaustria.at ↗

Involved: Teach For Austria, Teach For All, MEGA Bildungsstiftung, City of Vienna

SOS Ready-Teams

Community & Neighbourhood · Social Innovation

For SOS Children’s Villages, we developed a new volunteer concept in an innovation process and supported its piloting: the Ready-Teams. In crises such as refugee movements or natural disasters, they quickly create safe places for children, and in between they are active in their own neighbourhoods.

sos-kinderdorf.at ↗

Involved: SOS-Kinderdorf

BUCH WIEN

Social Innovation · Business

BUCH WIEN was looking for new formats alongside its book fair and reading festival, such as one-day knowledge forums that build on its network. In design thinking workshops with the team, we developed formats and a business model for this.

buchwien.at ↗

Klausurwerk

Social Innovation · Business

One or two days in a lodge out in nature, a question a team has long wanted to work on, and at the end three directions for the time after.

klausurwerk.at ↗

Umbruch

Collective Action · Social Innovation

When the coronavirus crisis called many certainties into question, we created umbruch.at as a place for new ideas of society. Authors wrote there about social innovation and about how living together could look different.