Offering "Seeds of Change" microvouchers in Openworld-assisted communities
Openworld is extending a "Seeds of Change" challenge offer of microscholarships for entrepreneurial schools, to support student research into opportunities for the schools and their communities to become financially sustainable. Students receiving Seeds of Change funding will create and share brief video clips or Powerpoint slides on their findings. A related component of the Seeds of Change resource offers will be a downloadable or streaming multimedia toolkit (also in CD/DVD and USB Flash drive formats) on creating local land grant endowments for schools and for ongoing microvoucher systems in the communities. Strategies and techniques covered in the toolkit include options for transfering idle municipal property, negotiating private sector land grants, and awakening land grant value through introduction of free zone-style incentives that remove barriers to investors and entrepreneurs. The toolkit also will give guidance on eligibility and disbursement procedures for microscholarship funds, reporting systems for local and global funders, and opportunities to introduce eGovernment pilot projects in ways that awaken dormant assets in land and workforce skills.
A diagram showing key steps in the Seeds of Change challenge offer path to sustainability is below.
