u-lab 2x 2023 | Presencing Institute (2024)

Almost anyone working to bring about change in their current situation would agree: operating from our existing assumptions is not producing the results that we know are needed in these times.

Our current reality highlights a need for us to transcend our blindspots and find new ways of learning, working, and innovating as teams, organizations, and communities.

Are you and your team holding a transformational project or prototype idea? Are you wanting to:

• unlock the full potential of your project?
• transcend old ways of operating?
• keep your team and yourself motivated?
• connect into a field of fellow-changemakers?

If this strikes a chord, then you are in the right place, at the right time: apply to u-lab 2x today.

• Background
• How it Works
• Last Year’s Cohort
• Eligibility
• Finding and Forming a Team

u-lab 1x was launched in 2015 as a new massive open online course designed to democratize access to the tools and methods of systems change. It has brought teachings, frameworks, and practices to over 180,000 unique learners around the world. In its first year, over 30,000 participants flocked into u-lab 1x to learn how to apply these transformative practices to their businesses, local communities, and in their personal lives.

Each u-lab 1x cohort resulted in an explosion of energy, ideas, new connections, and a sense of real possibility for transforming business, society, and self. However, there wasn’t yet a dedicated journey for continuing to nurture the emerging ideas, connections, and insights generated by u-lab 1x.

With so much potential being born, what infrastructure and process could be provided to help these teams and their powerful ideas reach their full capacity for driving change?

Sensing into what was needed next, clarity emerged for a new kind of innovation journey and prototype accelerator: u-lab 2x.

Now about to begin it's fourth cohort, u-lab 2x

• leverages the unique methodology developed through the u-lab 1x learning journey
• combines online learning with the Presencing Institute’s decades of experience in guiding small and large teams through innovation processes
• generates a co-learning experience by guiding a global network of teams through the 4-months simultaneously
• deepens the impact of the transformation process by providing a platform for these teams to share and make use of each others’ insights.
• scales change-initiates worldwide by partnering with institutions, civil society organizations, universities, and companies worldwide to keep the u-lab 2x journey cost free for participating teams like yours.

So far, u-lab 2x has facilitated 790 team journeys. Last year alone, 2x teams stretched across 449 cities. A diverse range of projects and prototypes have gone through the process.

Right now, teams are gathering and clarifying their applications as we prepare to embark as the 2023 cohort.

The u-school focuses its work toward the transformation of economy and society around eight key acupuncture points (or leverage areas). Through rapid-cycle prototyping and co-evolving solutions that work at scale, the u-school aims to amplify the transformation of civil society globally.

u-lab 2x convenes both place-based teams and teams collaborating online from around the world that are working toward solutions in one of these eight areas. As a three-month, multi-local, online and offline innovation journey - u-lab 2x will help these teams:

• Understand the deeper forces at play in social systems that can either be obstacles or leverage points for change;
• Identify emerging future possibilities in your work;
• Prototype new ways of working together in multi-stakeholder settings;
• Evolve your project or initiatives

Interested in convening a team for u-lab 2x?