Seeds can now be used as a way to pay for and receive a six-week, better-than-free university-level course for learners who want to discover more tools and techniques to create new, healthier ecosystems around the world. Participants completing all assignments in the new program will receive 15,000 Seeds at the end of the course, which is 10 times the cost of the initial investment of $30 USD per session. You can become a scholar for the SEEDS Regenerative Renaissance–a movement that has the planet in mind but creates models for local communities to regain health and flourish.

Tools for Regenerative Renaissance is a founding course of RenaissanceU which is stewarded by Phoebe Tickell, Stephen Reid, and SEEDS.

Enrollment in RenaissanceU is underway. The virtual coursework will start on February 10th 2020 online, but the goal is to offer courses and seminars on physical campuses once schools begin to reconvene. Dandelion, a not-for-profit social ticketing platform, is the first online events site to accept payments in Seeds.

The Earth is in a Regenerative Renaissance, a time when people are awakening to the role they play as stewards of the Earth and the continued existence of humanity. An effect of the worldwide pandemic, which also engulfed world powers in historic, political conflicts, was an awakening to some positive impacts of a stiller world – reduction in carbon emissions, for one. With this awakening more of humanity began to see that climate change is here, it is not a myth and it is not something in the distant future. In addition, many informational retreats for planetary movements have been shut down as a result of the pandemic. That combination creates the right timing to seize opportunities to help humans become better stewards for the Earth by breaking old habits and mindsets, and re-learning new practices that are healthier for communities and better for the planet, the children, plants and animals.

The RenaissanceU program was designed by the team who created Don’t Go Back To Normal in conjunction with members of Hypha DHO, the organization providing the tools to develop the regenerative SEEDS ecosystems throughout bioregions on nearly every continent. By design, RenaissanceU offers tools and subject matter experts who will focus on solutions and platforms that can be used by students to create new systems, new practices right now for decentralized governance, improved health in their communities and planetary healing.

The course will be led by a pair of experienced cross-disciplinary facilitators, Stephen Reid and Phoebe Tickell (see bios below). In addition, each week will feature guest experts from one or more featured projects.

Reid said “It wasn’t so long ago, at least in the UK, where people were being paid to go to universities. It’s changed very quickly in a short space of time and the idea of education as a public good is fading rapidly. We’re now used to thinking of students much more as consumers, so I think this is a really interesting opportunity to start reversing that narrative or building a new one saying that properly educated citizens are something that we will all benefit from.”

The Course Agenda:
Week 1: Introduction – The Regenerative Renaissance
Week 2: Local Food & Thriving Local Economies, Light Food, Open Food, Community Supported Agriculture, Makerspaces, Tiny Houses & P2P energy
Week 3: Regenerative Money, SEEDS, Celo, Circles, Cobudget & Aragon
Week 4: Decentralized Organising and Boss-less Leadership Teal, Sociocracy, Holacracy, Enspiral & Loomio
Week 5: Co-operative Ownership Platform Co-operatives, Purpose Organisations & Dandelion
Week 6: Wrap up

Lead Facilitators
Stephen Reid
Stephen Reid is a co-operative technologist and cultural changemaker who has trained in the fields of physics, complexity science, software development, meditation, psychotherapy, plant medicine, conscious sexuality and political activism. He is currently a co-director of Dandelion Collective (the not-for-profit worker co-operative behind the Psychedelic Society, which he founded in 2014), the lead developer of dandelion.earth, a co-creator of Don’t Go Back To Normal and a contributor to Enspiral.

Phoebe Tickell
Phoebe Tickell is a scientist, educator and serial systems entrepreneur. Since the age of 22, she has co-founded a series of organizations that steward systems change via innovation, weaving together networks and learning programs across the sectors of education, food and farming, sustainability, and technology. She has a first class degree in Biological Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.