The Virtuous Cycle
Conceptual project
“Illiteracy is one of the strongest predictors of poverty, and unequal access to education opportunity is one of the strongest correlates of income inequality. ”
The Virtuous Cycle campaign was designed directed to people committed to leading "as if life mattered", welcoming educators, designers, doctors, administrators, economists, chemists, stay-home parents, students, professionals; people from all over the world committed to the idea of solving current global problems through education.
Posed as a contest, The Virtuous Cycle aimed to trigger awareness for the UN Millennium Goals' deadline (2015), and boost creativity to achieve the goals.
In 2000, the United Nations pledged a set of goals that were agreed upon by countries and institutions from 189 nations. In order to address world problems that were threatening growth and development of humankind, these goals were set to be reached by 2015 and were identified as the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2000).
When designing the Virtuous cycle, we believed each of the eight goals could be addressed or improved through education.
UNESCO, (2010). The Central role of education in the millennium development goals. New York: United Nations.
The ultimate goal of this project was to crowdsource ideas, and recycle, reimplement or replicate knowledge, tendencies, solutions through global collaboration. Build a platform to share evidence-based knowledge, suggestions for experts to comment, providing a scenario to share ideas of what has worked and how to implement it. A space to share self-sustainable, achievable solutions to problems that might be faced elsewhere.
Project collaborators: Lory Pongpol, Dawn Mai, Nazli Ceren Binyildirim, Kathleen Mejia, Megan Cree-Smith
Video credits: Lory Pongpol