Hopeful, Not Hyped
Real about what technology and design can do for people and planet. Wonder, hed to honest account.
The Spaceship Academy . Paris
Paris Experiential Learning Programs
We plan and facilitate all-inclusive, customized study tours that give diverse groups a unique and fascinating look into the many facets of Paris. We build each tour around the interests and the special needs of the people travelling.
Why Paris, and why only Paris
One City, Read Deeply
Paris is not a museum. It is an experiment: a thousand-year-old city teaching itself to change, fast, without losing its soul. Its universities, laboratories, cultural institutions, and sustainability projects sit within a few Métro stops of one another, close enough that a group can read the city the way an ecologist reads a forest, a living system of memory and invention, streets and sustainability, food and belonging. Focusing on one city allows students to experience it far more deeply rather than spending time travelling.
Everything is arranged end to end: one base for the week, private moves across town, meals, seminars, and the people who open the doors. Groups arrive with an interest and a pace; we design the week to fit both.
Overview
Two Editions, One City
Edition One · Lifelong learners
The Unfinished City
For lifelong learners, alumni, and university partners. Six days, six questions, and a city reinventing how we live.
Edition Two · Grades 9 to 12Next Generation
For students in grades 9 to 12, at the point where they begin to picture their own future.
The Unfinished City
Innovation illuminating innovation
Most Paris trips hand you the past behind glass. This one hands you the present, live and unfinished. Under the postcard, Paris is one of the boldest experiments on Earth. One idea runs through every day, innovation illuminating innovation.
People, Not Panels
A living voice every day: a historian, an urbanist, a founder, a chef. The city talks back.
One Base, Real Depth
One beautiful hotel, all week. No packing and repacking. Paris becomes home, not a checklist.
The week
Six Days, Six Questions
Each day opens with the history of a place, then moves into the field. One theme runs beneath them all and returns on the last day, now about you: how do you stay yourself while becoming something new?
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01
Arrival & The Living System
What kind of city does Paris teach us to notice?
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02
The City of Memory
What is worth repairing?
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03
Frontier Technologies
Who gains, who adapts, who decides?
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04
Sustainability & Systems
Can an old city become a future city?
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05
Food & Neighbourhoods
Where does Paris feel most human?
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06
Governance & The Salon
How has Paris changed how we think about the future?
One rhythm, every day: a morning seminar, an afternoon in the field, an evening conversation over dinner. Sites named here are representative of what we finalize with you.
The essentials
- Length
- Six full program days, seven nights, with arrival and departure built in.
- Group size
- 18 to 24 participants. Private departures available.
- Season
- Late spring, with May the sweet spot for lifelong-learning calendars.
- Pace & access
- Deliberately unhurried. Level walks with seating built in. Private moves across town.
Edition Two · Next Generation
A Week Among Big Thinkers Grades 9 to 12
Built for young people at the moment they begin to picture their own future. The week puts them in the same rooms as the people shaping it: researchers, founders, and the institutions where the world argues about what comes next.
Within Paris we can include
- Visits to leading international universities
- Conversations with innovators and entrepreneurs
- Hands-on workshops with The Spaceship Academy
- Exploration of sustainability and future cities
- Exposure to global institutions such as UNESCO
The essentials
- Length
- Three to six program days, shaped around your school calendar and budget.
- Group size
- 18 to 24 participants. Private departures available.
- Season
- Summer, when school schedules open up and the city is at its most active.
- Pace & access
- Full, active days on foot and by Métro, with supervised free time built in and two major experiences a day.
Faculty
Who Leads The Week
Dr. Craig Vezina
Founder & CEO · Faculty Lead
Three decades at the frontier of education, including years as a distinguished professor of history and Dean at the American School of Paris, and today adjunct faculty at Fordham University. He advises the OECD on Future of Education and Skills 2030 and UNESCO on its Futures of Education initiative, and has designed and led learning journeys through Paris for more than twenty years.
Laura Lee Williams
Experiential Learning & Partnerships
Twenty-five years as a strategic marketing executive, with campaigns for Nike, Apple, Ralph Lauren, and Rolls-Royce. As Vice President of Global Development for the Harvard Alumni Association she built a sector-based mentorship program connecting alumni worldwide. She holds a Master's from Harvard and a BA from UCLA.
Dr. Kristi Marchesani
Global Director of Education Partnerships
An educator, speaker, and global education advocate with nearly three decades of teaching, student support, and international program leadership. She has taught and mentored learners from more than 60 countries, beginning as a teacher and residential counselor at the American International School in Salzburg and later building academic success courses and student engagement programs at the University of Northern Iowa. A seasoned traveller who has visited more than 105 countries, she holds a PhD in Educational Leadership.
- OECD
- UNESCO
- Station F
- SXSW EDU
- ChangeNOW
- Harvard Alumni Association
Start the conversation
Let Us Build The Week Together
Tell us who is travelling, what they care about, and what they need from the pace of a week. We will come back with a shape for it.
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01
Discovery Call
Your audience, dates, needs
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02
Tailored Proposal
Designed itinerary, named voices
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03
Launch & Reserve
Dates confirmed, pre-departure opens