Social Change Scholarships
Psychology and technology for humanity
Our popular workshops on digital psychology grew out of scientific research on using technology to promote public health, safety, environmental protection, and social development.
However, to build a successful training academy, we needed to diversify our training and support professionals in all industries, not just those working for mission-driven organizations.
To ensure that our digital psychology education contributes towards positive social change, we run a periodic scholarship program where we give away educational scholarships to qualifying changemakers.
These go to change-makers who are using digital media for social good.
If you wish to apply for one of our scholarships and attend our 9 week online training course free of charge, please ensure you meet the qualification criteria and complete the application form.
What is covered by the scholarship
The current scholarship covers our full online training system, which includes the courses, Psychology for Digital Behavior Change (DBC) and Emotional Design Psychology and Neuroscience (EDP).
Online scholarships cover 2 years of access to our online lessons and access to our 9 week online LIVE tutorial sessions. Classroom scholarships cover 5-days of full-time education.
The scholarship includes the option to complete our certification tests for the Digital Behavior Change Certificate (DBCC), the Emotional Design Psychology Certificate (EDPC), and the Digital Behavioral Design Certificate (DBDC).
The cost covered by this program is $798.00 for online scholarships and $1,248.00 for classroom scholarships. This scholarship does not cover expenses beyond the tuition fee.
Qualification criteria
To qualify, you must provide evidence that your work, education, or career path meets the following criteria. Specific scholarships may contain a unique focus that supersedes the following criteria. See the scholarship announcement for the most recent details.
Criteria 1. Contribute to one of these impact areas
Inclusion criteria: You must make the case that our training has the potential to help you make a greater impact on the world, via technology, within our four impact areas:
- Social development
- Environmental protection
- Public health
- Public safety
Exclusion criteria: Non-qualifying impact areas include work to propagate ideological views serving partisan interest groups, including political parties, spiritual organizations, or any advocacy that includes the dissemination of ideologies that advocate inequality, intolerance, unhealthy lifestyles, violence, or anti-environmental policies.
Criteria 2. Focus on using technology to facilitate social change
Inclusion criteria: You must be using digital media or technology as a tool to help your change-making work. Qualifying digital media includes anything via the web, such as websites, social media, mobile apps, wearable tech, and just about anything that constitutes interactive technology.
Exclusion criteria: Non-qualifying uses of interactive technologies include work that is primarily aimed at marketing or selling products or services for profit. If you come from a B-Corp or social enterprise, for-profit applications are permissible, provided this work is part of a formal social enterprise business, in which case proof of social enterprise status is required.
Criteria 3. Meet our 4 organizational criteria
Inclusion criteria: You must be associated with one of the following qualifying organization, and apply with an email address from that organization:
- Non-profit organization: You must be associated with an organization that is officially registered as non-profit organization
- Students: You must be officially registered with an accredited University, at the Masters level or higher.
- Social enterprise: You must be a certified B-Corp or have evidence to support your claim that your organization qualifies as a social enterprise.
- Member of CSI: If you are a member of the Center for Social Innovation in Toronto or New York City, you or your organization automatically qualify. We started at CSI, and became the first member of both CSI offices in Canada and USA.
Exclusion criteria: Non-qualifying organizations include businesses, commercial enterprises, and some borderline cases such as the corporate philanthropy departments within corporations.
Scholarship rules
To increase your chances of winning, please follow our scholarship rules:
- Applications received after the application deadline will not be considered, so be sure to apply on time.
- Each person can only apply for this scholarship once per scholarship season. In other words, people can only submit once per scholarship. However, they can apply to subsequent scholarships.
- Applicants cannot apply for an award they already won. But they can apply for a new scholarship, focused on a new course.
- Each application must be original and cannot include standard text that was copied and shared by a team. Each member of a team can apply, provided each applicant authors an original application relevant to their particular learning needs, work and aspirations.
- You must use your institutional email address, and it must match the website of the institution you are applying on behalf of. We cannot accept applications from generic email addresses, such as Gmail, Hotmail, etc…
- Tickets are non-transferable and cannot be sold. Any ticket that is discovered to be transferred or sold will be disqualified.
- Any applications that is discovered to contain false information may be disqualified at any time, and in the future. The next runner up will receive the scholarship.
- In the event that we need to postpone or change the class date, the winner will have the option to take the next training date or attend any alternative in the future.
- By applying, you authorize AlterSpark to list your name, institution, digital media work, and how your work is contributing to a better world.
What if I already have a ticket
If you have already purchased a ticket, you can still apply. We believe that it’s counter productive to offer competing incentives. For this reason, we don’t want to stop anyone from taking advantage of our early registration offers in the hopes of winning a ticket. So if you have paid for our training, but also gain a scholarship, we will provide you the option of taking a full refund.
How our selection process works
Our selection criteria is simple: we want to see that you are passionate about this subject and that our training will help you build a better world.
- We will randomly draw the number of qualifying candidates.
- Next, we’ll assess the selected candidate to ensure they match our qualification criteria.
- Those who fail to pass our criteria (listed above) are instantly disqualified, and the next runner-up will be assessed. Please ensure that you provide all the necessary evidence.
- Those who meet our qualification criteria will win a scholarship.
- Finally, we’ll send the winner an access code to claim their scholarship.
