About the UnSchool
Since 2014, we’ve been helping people from all over the world fill their knowledge-action gap between wanting to change the world and having the skillset needed to design solutions that activate positive impact.
Our Mission
To activate and seed creative leadership globally for positive social and environmental change
Our Core
Systems change, the science of sustainability and transformative design uphold everything we do
Our method
We are the home of the Disruptive Design Method, a 3-part framework for any-sized problem
Leyla Acaroglu launched The UnSchool and created the Disruptive Design Method (DDM) as an approach for creative change-makers to help design new systems that make the current polluting, inequitable and unsustainable systems obsolete.
Turn your ambition in action
Here at the UnSchool, you’ll learn how to love complex problems and get the tools you need to contribute to some of the greatest challenges of our time. No matter what your existing skillset is, our courses help you add on tools and techniques for positive impact.
From micro courses to certification programs, online and offline courses, The UnSchool has been at the forefront of creative change-making for over a decade. Through our unique educational experiences, you’ll expand your capacity to turn ambition into action and ideas into positive disruptions for a future that works better for all of us.
Systems thinking: embracing complexity
The UnSchool helps you undo the damage of reductive thinking that much of our mainstream education system reinforces.
We’ll help you retool your brain so you can uncover complex, interconnected systems at play and discover how to activate your agency to change the world around you—in micro and macro ways.
Change is constant, and even when things look very bad, there is always the possibility for a small part of the system, a well-placed disruption, to ignite transformative change. We’ll teach you how to become that spark.
The Disruptive Design Method is a scaffolding that supports your existing skillset and is designed to support you in your own creative change journey. Once you have learned how to explore and love systems, embrace complexity, think through different perspectives and create solutions that fit the problem within your sphere of influence, then you can move on to developing your own way of enacting change.
Discover the Disruptive Design Method
Combining systems thinking, sustainability science, and design tools, the Disruptive Design Method gives you a mental toolset for activating your agency, supporting your community, and participating in the world with more purpose.
How it all started
A short timeline of the UnSchool
2014-2017: The Early Years
The UnSchool launched on September 5th, 2014, with a gamified party in New York City and invitations to a series of events and workshops on how to make change. Then we started running immersive, hyper-dynamic 7-day Fellowship programs—first in New York, then in Mexico City, São Paulo, Mumbai and Melbourne—a total of 10 different cities around the world, sharing the Disruptive Design Method and activating a truly global community
2017-2021: The CO Project Farm
In 2017, we sought a unique, creative home base for The UnSchool. Inspired by the idea of a brain spa, Leyla restored an abandoned farmhouse next to a roofless olive mill on gorgeous land filled with olive and fruit trees in Portugal’s countryside. Combining embodied systems thinking with a real-time regeneration experiment, the CO Project farm was filled with people, plants and creativity until its less-than-ideal ending when Covid hit.
Now: The Online Era
Since closing the CO Project Farm, we’ve embraced the dominant online, globally interconnected era. Through online courses and live online workshops, we have created time-based challenges (like our popular 30 Days of Systems Thinking Challenge) and work remotely with people to help them advance their skills in systems thinking, the circular economy and activating positive change. In 2024, we launched a sister project—Circular Futures—to support professionals activating the circular economy.
You start as a single individual, and at the end, you will be the sum of 16 emerging leaders with different backgrounds and cultures. You will be aware of hundreds of things that you were not aware of before. But the most important thing, you will be fully loaded with tools and techniques to make positive change in your country.
Arturo OrtegaMexico City Fellowship Alumni
A decade of change
Positive Disruption at The UnSchool
In 2024, we celebrated the 10th birthday of The UnSchool and commemorated it with a special 10-year compendium book by Leyla Acaroglu. A collection of disruptive ideas and frameworks for creating positive change, The UnSchool of Disruptive Design Compendium pulls together all 5 of the original handbooks in Leyla’s Make Change series and includes new intros/outros for each, revised graphics, alumni testimonials and more!
Available in both digital and print formats, it’s your perfect companion for building a future that works better for us all.
The UnSchool History
Founded by Dr. Leyla Acaroglu, inspired by the possibility of creating a non-traditional and experimental learning lab for like-minded creative rebels and creatives wanting to effect change in the world around them
Held the first Disruptive Design Method Fellowship in New York City and then the second Fellowship in Mexico City
Launched UnSchools Online, our exclusive online learning hub, to create wider access for global change-makers; Leyla was named Champion of the Earth by the United Nations for her work in advancing Science and Innovation for sustainability; Held 3 more Fellowships in Berlin, Melbourne and Sao Paulo
Ran the Christchurch, NZ fellowship; Began restoring the CO Project Farm in Portugal as a regenerative brain spa and learning lab; Ran the San Francisco and Mumbai Fellowships; Launched the highly-sought Tools for Systems Thinkers series; Created free toolkits on Change-making Superpowers and Circular ReDesign
Launched first programs at CO Project Farm, including summer camps and regenerative systems design workshops; Held the Cape Town Fellowship; Started the #PostDisposable campaign to end plastic waste; Partnered with the Finnish government to create The Circular Classroom; Started a partnership with the UN to create tools for activating sustainable lifestyles
Launched the Anatomy of Action in partnership with the UNEP; Continued to run programs at CO and hosted our final Fellowship in Kuching, Malaysia; Worked with Oxfam in Thailand and completed an educational build called Change Makers Lab
Weathered Covid by running our programs online and creating the Stay Positive Brain-Activating 30-Day Challenge; Partnered with Unily to create the Decade of Disruption Report
Published the Hero Veg Cookbook; Made the difficult decision to move on from the CO project farm due to the impacts of Covid; Launched a mobile app (now sunset); Established a full Sustainability in Business course series that prompted us to build a full professional offering
Wrote & published Swivel to Sustainability: A Guidebook to Full Systems Business Transformation; Began building Circular Futures to close the corporate sustainability skills gap; Partnered with LinkedIn Learning to create the course Sustainability as an Innovation Opportunity for their platform
Partnered with LinkedIn Learning to create and launch two more courses: Transform your Business through Sustainability and Climate Leadership and Circular Economy Business Strategies
Celebrated a decade of UnSchool by creating a 10 year compendium book, The UnSchool of Disruptive Design; Launched Circular Futures, our sister platform for corporate sustainability training; Created and released a free Eco-Anxiety toolkit
Let’s see how this year turns out! Stay tuned!
15,000+ happy alumni
A common goal
It was an incredible experience to work alongside and learn from really smart people from very different backgrounds and disciplines, all with a common goal. The content was full of value and engaging, and I’ve rewatched it and referred to it many many times since.
Milosz FalinskiFounder of Digital for Good
Empowered
I filled a gap in my knowledge, but far beyond that. The positive energy and encouragement, an interest in individual ideas, a safe, supportive learning environment - I felt empowered and motivated, while meeting some amazingly gifted and passionate people.
Scout MorrisCycling Sustainability
Now I see!
I never truly understood the power of gamification before going to Unschool. Now I see that it can underpin all the elements required for social change to happen. I am hungry to learn more and put it into action.
Esther WhiteheadCentre for Social Impact
Equity Access
We prioritize accessibility to our programs through equity access scholarships, a free resource library, and client policies that enable our larger Equity Access program.
Alumni Stories
Meet our global community of creative change-makers! From authors to flight attendants to citizen designers, hear how The UnSchool changed their lives.
Interconnected
One way we stay connected, optimistic, and activated along with our global community is through curating our bimonthly e-newsletter, Interconnected.