ASPIRe's Pillars

To ensure ASPIRe process was grounded in the experiences and learnings of social entrepreneurs the ASPIRe team researched the Ashoka network to discover 14 Ashoka Fellows who had successfully implemented platforms for the good of all, which resulted in the research report “Leveraging Platforms for Impact at Scale”. Our findings were featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.  

We combined the insights and patterns that emerged from these Ashoka fellows with the values of Societal Thinking to distill nine design principles that we believe are very useful to social entrepreneurs on a quest to define their exponential change. These are now a very important pillar of the ASPIRe Accelerator.  

As our Fellows went on their journeys of leveraging technology, it became evident to us that open-source solutions were an effective and viable pathway for social entrepreneurs. As a result, ASPIRe is now collaborating with a wide network of organizations to create OASIS, an alliance of organizations that are aligned around a similar vision of open-source technology, not only to support the future cohorts of ASPIRe fellows but also to bridge this gap for the entire sector

Continuing the Journey:

Through the support of its partners and funders, ASPIRe was able to bring together exceptional leaders, develop a body of open knowledge for the social sector and started weaving a network of allies and partners who were generous to help enable Ashoka Fellows and beyond. After the initial two years of being a co-created initiative between Ashoka and Societal Thinking, ASPIRe eventually became fully integrated as an Ashoka global program. 

Societal Thinking remains a valuable partner with whom we exchange learnings, seek expertise, and extend our networks to support each other.  

ASPIRe has also established partnerships with a wide eco-system such as Tech To The Rescue, Infosys, FOSS United, Tech4 Good, and beyond that a group of 37 high level tech and strategy experts have recently joined in to shape the group of Mission Allies who are supporting the journey of our new cohort of Fellows 2023.