In order to harness the opportunities offered by the transition to a circular economy, it is increasingly important to build capacity in your organisation. Here are three free online education programs.
1. Disruptive Innovation Festival, 2 - 20 November 2015
The Disruptive Innovation Festival, or DIF, is an annual three-week online event that brings together entrepreneurs, designers, industry, makers, learners and doers to explore and respond to the changing economy. It is curated by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with WIRED, Cisco, FabLab and Launch Nordic.
The DIF is a “take your pick” kind of event, with over 200 sessions. Sessions typically focus on design and engineering, business and innovation, or education and training. After registering, participants have open access to all sessions streamed directly to their device.
This year’s highlights include:
- The collaborative economy - Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar
- Will Europe seize the circular economy opportunity? - Ida Auken, member of Danish Parliament and the World Economic Forum Meta-Council on the Circular Economy, and Jyrki Katainen, European Commission vice president and commissioner for Jobs, Growth, Competitiveness and Investment
- The values behind a circular economy – George Lakoff, expert in cognitive science and linguistics, Professor at University of California at Berkeley
2. MOOC Circular Economy: an introduction, 20 October – 15 December
A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course – a way for top class universities to offer equal learning opportunities to anyone. The MOOC on the Circular Economy is a free introductory course into the principles and ideas behind a circular economy, hosted on the open source edX platform. It was developed by Delft University of Technology, in co-creation with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability, a three-university partnership.
The course runs over a period of seven weeks, with a focus on the business value that can be created in a circular economy, through product-life extension, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling. The course features short video lectures by academic experts as well as interviews with Fairphone, Philips Healthcare, Meritor, ACTronics, Coolrec, Interface and the Circle Economy.
Designed for working professionals, Circular Economy: an introduction offers interactive, online learning in a convenient, time saving manner (one to three hours per week depending on the level of interaction you want). In addition to the illuminating videos, there are assessments and tests, and ample opportunities to engage with peers in the discussion forum. The course starts on 20 October, but can be accessed at any moment after 20 October.
3. Designing Cradle to Cradle Certified Products for the Circular Economy
This self-paced course by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute was created to bring about a transformation in the way things are made and to help designers obtain a Cradle to Cradle certificate. The course content takes about one hour to complete. Its main target group is product designers – most of the content is about providing practical instructions and case studies for product designers in the application of Cradle to Cradle design principles.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Philips, sponsor of the circular economy hub
