Seeds of an idea
In the 1980s, co-founder Mehrdad worked under the supervision of Nobel laureate Tom Schelling at the Harvard Kennedy School to study the emergence of cooperation using simulations. Mehrdad and a colleague developed a Climate Change negotiation simulation which became part of the negotiation courses offered at the Harvard Business School, Law School and Kennedy School.
High Resolves is born
In 2005, Mehrdad and Roya were looking to make a significant contribution to society. They recalled the simulation from the 80s and approached their son’s school, the International Grammar School in inner city Sydney, to pilot the approach for high school students. Students were engaged, and so work began to flesh out the activities into comprehensive curriculum.
Expansion throughout Sydney
The program grew quickly, with 20 schools across Sydney engaging High Resolves to deliver its high-quality learning experiences. We recruited educators and expert facilitators to deliver our programs and support Mehrdad in developing and refining curriculum. High Resolves was being recognised as a provider of high-quality learning experiences.
New hubs are created
During the next few years, High Resolves expanded to more than 100 schools, and opened new hubs in Melbourne and Brisbane, as demand for our services grew. With this scale, we made a strategic decision to introduce pricing for our services to continue to grow our impact and reach a wider range of schools. We were a fully self-funded social enterprise by 2017.
Regional and Remote Australia
In 2019, we reached 90,000 Australian students and opened new hubs in regional Australia. During the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, we created high-quality online offerings to engage students and teachers, through the Open Learning platform. These resources continue to be valued by schools where we do not have COVID restrictions, and allows us to scale our impact into the rest of Australia.
