Student Activism Can Change the World

Impassioned, student-led movements driving for social change hold plenty of lessons about innovation for executives and corporations

by John Hagel and John Seely Brown

Forty years ago, in May, 1968, protests, demonstrations, and marches—not all of them peaceful—put students at the University of California, Berkeley, at the forefront of the antiwar, free speech, and civil rights movements. Today, Cal Berkeley is again in the vanguard as a new generation of student activists emerges to help address some of the most pressing social issues of our era: energy efficiency, Third World poverty and disease, and sustainable housing, among others. The quiet activism pursued by today's activists may not generate as many headlines as the actions of their well-known predecessors, but they may ultimately have greater impact as they mobilize the edge to transform the core.

A key catalyst for this new generation of student activism is Tom Kalil, special assistant to the chancellor for science and technology at UC Berkeley. Kalil, formerly an official in President Bill Clinton's White House, has the specific charter of helping foster initiatives on the edge of multiple academic disciplines, including information technology, nanotechnology, and biology.

Kalil has two tightly linked aspirations. First, to transform academic institutions by mobilizing engaged and empowered students. Second, to transform society by taking on some of the most challenging social problems and connecting resources across a variety of edges to come up with innovative and high-impact solutions. From Kalil's perspective, tackling difficult social problems like environmental pollution, inadequate health care, and sustainable development will be much more successful if the energy and creativity of engaged students can be unleashed.

A Marketplace of Student Ideas

To achieve these aspirations, Kalil has fostered three related initiatives. First, in 2006, he helped launch the Big Ideas contest at Berkeley in collaboration with the student government and various research centers across Berkeley's campus. With seed funding provided by Pierre Omidyar's Network Enzyme Program and support from companies such as AT&T (T), the contest has become an annual event, offering students $170,000 in prizes to come up with creative ideas for tackling "grand challenges."

Second, Kalil helped organize the Big Ideas @ Berkeley Marketplace, an online forum, to increase the visibility of promising ideas and connect specific student projects with interested alumni and potential donors to make tax-deductible donations and in-kind contributions.

Third, he has gathered resources to help mentor, coach, and inspire student leaders. Kalil always asks students what they would do if they were no longer limited by their resources, which encourages them to think on a larger scale. He also works with a large network of individuals and institutions, both on and off campus, to help with strategic planning, fundraising, and recruiting additional partners.

Strongest Results on Campus

These three initiatives create an effective funnel to move ideas. The Big Ideas contests bring to the surface creative ideas and engaged student leaders. The online marketplace and Kalil's support network then connect these ideas and leaders with the resources and help required to amplify them.

These attempts to mobilize and support the edge are beginning to yield significant results. Initially, the impact has been greatest within the academic institution. A number of student-led initiatives have been mobilized and have focused resources across traditional disciplinary and institutional boundaries on the campus.

One example—backed by Kalil—is the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative (BERC), a student-led initiative designed to connect academic resources focused on cleantech. This 700-member collaborative brings together students and professors from such diverse disciplines as law, chemistry, engineering, and business, and builds bridges into the larger San Francisco Bay Area cleantech entrepreneurial community.