Who are the Shapers?

People who take a stand, dare to Dream Big and courageously reinvent the way things operate.


Shapers are the people who embody “shapership.
Shapers have been around as long as we can remember! They appear in every country, social groups, fields of activity, age-brackets, genders, races and contexts.
They have "changed the world", at least part of it.
They have opened new paths - in Education, Justice, Philosophy, Management, Health, etc. - which were previously invisible and perceived as “impossible.

If Shapers change the world, it is because they make alternative Futures visible.
Shapers make the Future the cause of the Present.
They make the impossible possible.
They change the story people tell themselves, what they believe is possible or impossible.
Hence, they change people’s lives!

In our interconnected world, you don’t have to be a Leader or to have a “title” to do something important and have an impact.
You don't have to be someone “important” to take a stand and reshape things.
Anyone with a strong Vision for improving Society and/or their Community can become a Shaper.

We focus on the way the Shapers perceive the world, i.e. on their way of seeing, being and acting.

Shapers usually are "Maverick Souls", determined to serve the World by bringing significant, seemingly impossible and durable changes.
They face Reality in creative, visionary and sometimes revolutionary ways.
They think big and creative.
They are not prisoners of facts and appearances.
They are not captured by the dominant stories, taken for granted ideas and worldviews of their time.
They are not under the pressure to conform.
They have transformative Visions of a radically different Future – sometimes a Utopia - which open up space for Hopes and desire. They have a "Dream" to enhance the Dignity and the Meaning of human Life and, even if others think it is "impossible", they make the "impossible" possible. They put the world upside down and adopt unconventional Wisdom.
They create new forms of collaboration. Whether through a mouvement, a company, a community, shapers unite people around shared Purposes.

They see things from an Eco-System Consciousness of Reality, way beyond any Ego-System Awareness.
The Essence of Shapership is Hope.
Hope made visible because it is displayed!
Shapers are “Eye-Openers”, “Eye Hopeners” and “High Openers” because they open Visions and new reasons for hoping!
Shapers open meaningful and progress-generating trails for the whole human “Eco-system”, trails that people may desire to follow.

But their road is often paved with obstacles and difficulties.
So, the “success” of their story is not measured by the smoothness of their path, nor by the quantitative and short-term results they obtain, but by the importance – sometimes the irreversibility – of the transformations they bring to Society and to the world, during their lifetime and beyond.

Even if, in the meantime, Shapers have died or “accidentally” lost their reputation or their Freedom, they generate “Cultural Revolutions”.
Shapers are History Makers.

Although it often starts at the individual level, since Shapers create ”movements”, Shapership can become a collective capacity as it did with “The Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale”, one of the first consumers cooperatives founded in 1844 in England by 28 Lancashire weavers or, more recently, the Transition Town Movement.

They all practice the Altitude Attitude.

DNA of Shapership
Among the more or less famous Shapers of the Past and the Present, we find names like
  • Abraham Lincoln (United States 1809-1865): Shaper of a Nation
  • Mahatma Gandhi (India, 1869-1948): Shaper of a liberated Nation
  • Maria Montessori (Italy 1870-1952): Shaper of a new approach to Education
  • Rosa Parks (United States 1913-2005): Shaper of Social Justice and Freedom
  • Pastor Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta (Basque Province of Spain 1915-1976): Shaper of a regional Destiny
  • Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (India 1918-2006): Shaper of an Eye-Care System with a Vision
  • Nelson Mandela (South Africa, 1918-2013): Shaper of Freedom
  • Martin Luther King (United States 1929 -1968):  Shaper of new Dreams.
  • Pierre Rabhi, (1938- 2021): Shaper of a new “Human – Earth Conscience”
  • Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh 1940-): Shaper of Development through Credit for the Poor
  • Bernard Lietaer (Belgium, 1942 -): Shaper of the Alternative Currency paradigm
  • Daniel Barenboim (Argentina and Israel, 1942-): Shaper of Peace through Music
Among the contemporary shapers (whose story we describe in our book), you can find
  • Sanjit “Bunker” Roy (India, 1945-): Shaper of Barefoot Education
  • Chris Rufer (United States, 1949-): Shaper of Self-Management
  • Baltasar Garzón (Spain, 1955-): Shaper of Universal Justice.
  • Catia Bastioli (Italy, 1957-): Shaper a new model of Sustainable Development integrated with the territory
  • Ricardo Semler (Brazil, 1959-): Shaper of Industrial Democracy
  • Michel Onfray (France, 1959-): Shaper of Freedom of Thought through Philosophy
  • Rob Hopkins (United Kingdom, 1968-): Shaper of the Transition Town Movement
  • Vishen Lakhiani (United States, Malaysia 1976-): Shaper of Self-Development for all
  • Salman Khan, Bengali, (1976 - ): Shaper of Education for Many
  • Jack Andraka (United-States, 1997 -) Shaper of a new cancer detection test
And maybe you!

Our Passion for purposeful Change(s) led us to write our first book "Shapership, the Art of shaping the Future", In this book, you will  find the story of a few that may become a source of inspiration. You may also want to discover Shapership in Practice to shape a desirable Future for yourself, your community or your organisation. You can also learn the Art of Shaping the Future in the Shapership Academi.

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