The Big Questions Challenge

Inspiration

We all know how important education is, but also are aware that our education system currently doesn’t prepare students fully for the challenges of the workplace. Our team looked at how could we make sure that students learn skills, such as teamwork, leadership, critical thinking, confidence, that are needed at the future job market and prepare them for learning by doing, learning from failure, etc.

What it does

Our solution is a week-long hackathon-type physical or virtual box, that addresses a real-life challenge. The students form teams and work on the challenges, while also discussing the skills they are learning from each step of solving the content of the box. At the end, they can share their end product / progress and ask for feedback from their peers, teachers and family.

How we built it

We have talked to students, teachers, and parents to understand what better education looks like for them. Supporting ourselves with research and mentors’ consultations, we used our knowledge, past experiences and creative powers to create a prototype of the “Big Questions Challenge” to get further feedback and refine our product.

Challenges we ran into

Virtual setting did make it harder at times to keep up our energy levels.
Time-constraints of the project were both the motivating and challenging aspect.

Accomplishments that we are proud of

Working together
Bringing our unique perspectives to the project
Staying open-minded

What we learned

Understanding the challenges young people face
The importance of building transferable skills
The hurdles in challenging the educational sector

What's next for The Big Questions Challenge

Next we plan to speak to experts in our problem area, especially those who have experience implementing project based learning, in order to learn, test our materials, and refine our framework. We will then focus on looking for partners such as charities and other successful education space organisations and corporate partners to test and refine our product with their networks, obtain funding, and grow faster.