The LearningCITY

Fellowship Program

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Photo: Colin Way

The Fellowship

The LearningCITY Fellowship is a 6-month collaborative learning and innovation journey designed to bring together leaders from Calgary’s diverse sectors to tackle complex, systemic workforce development challenges.

Fellows will engage in immersive, in-person workshops, collaborate on shared challenges, and co-create innovative solutions rooted in systems thinking and community-driven approaches. The Fellowship culminates in a joint proposal or grant application to bring a co-designed initiative to life.

The Program

Our Fellowship is a six-month program composed of four stages.

Stage 1: Orientation & Introduction

  • Fellowship kickoff

  • Introduction to Open learning

  • Introduction to Social Innovation concepts

Stage 2: Learning Labs

  • Monthly In-Person, Half-day Capacity-Building Workshops

  • Introduction to Program Design and Program Management

  • Systems Mapping & Ecosystem Collaboration

  • Community-Engaged & Participatory Program Design

  • Story-telling and Pitch Preparation

Stage 3: Innovation Sprint

  • Collaborative ideation and prototyping, working with a Host Organization through Futures Thinking workshops

  • Fellows will choose 1 of 3 Futures workshops to attend

  • Teams finalize proposals for an innovative initiative

  • Support with proposal writing, budgeting, and outcome frameworks

  • Proposal presentation for peer and community input and feedback

Stage 4: Fellowship Showcase & Completion

  • Final presentations and pitch session

  • Networking and ecosystem connection opportunities

  • Honorarium distributed to Fellows

The Challenge

Each cohort of LearningCITY Fellows is provided a challenge question to focus their project on. Cohort 1 has been provided the following challenge:

How might we better engage underserved communities in tackling Canada’s productivity challenges?

Underserved Communities may include: Indigenous peoples, Immigrants/newcomers, Neurodiverse learners - anyone whose participation in traditional learning and career pathways has been systemically challenged.

Fellows will explore systemic issues such as:

  • Credentialing recognition, funding and capital barriers

  • Innovation skills and digital-related gaps

  • Inclusive programming and a lack of belonging

  • Structural displacement from high-growth industries