Written by One World Founder, Joe Carvin

The idea for One World was born in a leadership class at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).   We were asked to begin to think about how we would use the skills we had learned in this leadership class in the real world when I noticed that the colleagues sitting to my left and right were from Japan and Germany.  I realized to my horror that 50 years earlier I would have been called upon to use the skills I had learned in that classroom to murder the human beings to either side of me.  

I wondered how it was that 50 years earlier we would have been constrained to be mortal enemies but here some five decades later we were friends and colleagues.  I resolved then and there that if I ever had an opportunity to create an entity capable of generating the same kind of peace and respect that existed in that classroom in the real world, I would make every effort to make that happen. 

Finally, after several years thinking about how best to make this happen, I founded One World with the lofty goal of improving human understanding and communication across the world.   It took us a while to hit on the right program but in February 2013 our board concluded that while we had launched several impactful programs, the program that really stood out was our K12 Global Competence Enrichment program. 

We therefore refocused our efforts on our Global Competence programs and developed an award-winning curriculum where we combine three educational disciplines – global education, character education and service learning – with a view to helping students develop this all-important 21^st century skillset.    

As the years progressed, we realized that to truly understand the world around us it is imperative that one understand exponential change and how fundamentally technology is transforming our world.    We therefore created a new course called Technology Awareness that we have been piloting.  

Finally, it also became very clear to us that the nature and scope of the economic opportunities and challenges youth in our 21^st century world were also rapidly changing.   In this YouTube video New York Times columnist tells us that “Average is Over” and that going forward 21^st century youth would need to create their own jobs.