Social Innovation:
What Have You Set in Motion?

NESSIC Student Leadership Symposium

Host School:

Date:

Hiba Academy Shanghai

235, Linyao Road, Pudong, Shanghai上海市浦东新区林耀路235号

Saturday, 6 March, 2027

This symposium is free to participate thanks to the generous support of the

Hiba Shanghai Education Development Foundation.

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ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

The NESSC Student Leadership Symposium on Social Innovation brings together student teams who are using service, creativity, and community insight to make a difference in their schools and local communities.

This one-day, in-person Symposium is designed for school teams of up to 10 students and 1 to 2 faculty advisers. Students will not only attend sessions. They will help shape the learning before the event, share their own work during the Symposium, and present what they learned afterwards.

At a time when schools are helping students move beyond participation toward purposeful action, this Symposium asks a simple question:

What have you set in motion?

From Service to Social Innovation

Students will explore how meaningful service begins with listening, develops through action, and improves through reflection and revision.

The Symposium will culminate with the Innovative Service Video Contest, where students create 60-second videos that tell the story of a service project they have launched or improved.

Strong videos will show how students have:

Identified a real need by speaking with those affected
Designed a project that responds to that need
Improved the project based on what worked and what did not
Shown how the benefits can continue beyond the first action

The Symposium will also help students understand what does not usually count as social innovation: solutions imposed from outside a community, projects that repeat existing ideas without improvement, service that offers only a short-term fix, or videos that do not show how students learned and adapted.

Intended Outcomes

Identify genuine community needs by listening to the people most affected

Design or refine a service project that responds meaningfully to an identified need

Distinguish social innovation from short-term service or solutions imposed on a community

Use reflection and evidence to improve a project and strengthen its long-term impact

Communicate the story, learning and future direction of a student-led service project

Participation and Registration

Each school may bring up to:

10 students + 1-2 faculty advisers

At this stage, only the school team coordinator’s information is required. Student names and individual details do not need to be submitted during the initial registration.

By the end of October 2026, coordinators must complete a separate participant form with the details of their participating students.

This form will also ask about dietary requirements and which hotel the team is staying at.

Symposium Moderator

RUSHTON HURLEY

Rushton Hurley has worked and studied on three continents as a Japanese language teacher, school principal, teacher trainer, and inspirational speaker. He founded and directs the educational nonprofit Next Vista for Learning, which houses a free library of creative educational videos at NextVista.org. Rushton holds masters degrees in Education and East Asian Studies from Stanford University.

The author of three books, Rushton's work centers on inspiration and creativity, technology and leadership, avenues for engaging learning, the power of digital media and cutting-edge technology for collaboration, and personal and professional perspectives in a technology-infused, ever-changing world. He also works with WarmDemanders.com to provide focused, self-paced mini-courses for professional development, including a course for educators on ChatGPT for which several thousand people around the world have registered.

In the spring of 2023, Rushton joined the team at Junípero Serra High School as the Director of Design-Led Innovation. In that role, he co-teaches the Creative Solutions for the Global Good class and coordinates international projects between Serra and other fascinating schools around the world.

Rushton loves to travel, cleans up after his cats, and considers himself to have married up.

More Details & Registration

About the Host School:

Stella Zhou
School Master

Hiba Academy Shanghai

Hiba Academy Shanghai is a bilingual school founded in 2018 as part of Wellington College Education (China). It offers a 16-year education covering Early Years, Primary School, Junior High, and High School, serving about 1,500 pupils. The school represents a blend of Eastern and Western educational practices within the framework of the Chinese National Curriculum, enriched by internationally recognised teaching methods. Its curriculum is taught in both Chinese and English with a 1:1 ratio of Chinese to international teachers, creating an immersive bilingual learning environment. Guided by the motto "Be You. Be More." and the Hiba Values of Kindness, Responsibility, Respect, Courage, and Integrity, the school aims to cultivate globally minded citizens who are Learners, Connectors, and Changemakers.

上海惠立学校创办于2018年，隶属于惠灵顿（中国）教育集团，是一所涵盖幼儿园、小学、初中及高中的K12双语学校，目前有约1500名在校学生。学校以中国国家课程为基础，融合中西教育理念与实践精华，采用中外教1：1配比的沉浸式双语教学模式，致力于为学生提供扎实的学术根基与全面的全人教育。学校以“惠贤育能，立德树人”为愿景，秉承“勇气、正直、善良、尊重、责任”的惠立价值观，培养学生成为立足中国文化底蕴、具备全球视野的国际化双语人才。