Seeds of an idea
In the 1980s, Toronto-born and High Resolves co-founder Mehrdad Baghai 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 together with his wife and co-founder Roya 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 across Australia as demand for services grew. With this scale, we made a strategic decision to introduce pricing for our services to ensure long term sustainability and the ability grow our impact. By 2017, Australia was a self-funded social enterprise. Given the immense response and impact, Mehrdad and Roya decided to expand outside Australia and launch pilots in other countries.
A Covid Transformation
In 2019, High Resolves Canada received charitable status and began working with schools in the Greater Toronto Area. During the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 and move to online learning, High Resolves responded quickly and innovatively with the creation of engaging, high-quality online offerings for students and teacher. The pandemic activated a transformation within High Resolves to scale, expand and cultivate its programs to a fully online, highly accessible, state of the art educational ecosystem.
