About Us

A passionate development practitioner, an international development student and an aspiring social entrepreneur, Mariam Adil believes in the power of young people, especially women, and has a vision of a world where empowered girls are not a minority but a norm. Her favorite quote this year is “Why can’t ‘run like a girl’ mean win the race?”

In addition to her roles and responsibilities as an economist (consultant) with the Education Global Practice at the World Bank, Mariam is working towards mainstreaming games as development solutions through her initiative GRID – Gaming Revolution for International Development.

Mariam is committed to making the world a better place, one game at a time.

Anant Agarwal is the CEO of edX, an online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT. Anant taught the first edX course on circuits and electronics from MIT, which drew 155,000 students from 162 countries. He has served as the director of CSAIL, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. He is a successful serial entrepreneur, having co-founded several companies including Tilera Corporation, which created the Tile multicore processor, and Virtual Machine Works.

Anant won the Maurice Wilkes prize for computer architecture, and MIT’s Smullin and Jamieson prizes for teaching. He holds a Guinness World Record for the largest microphone array, and is an author of the textbook Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits.

Scientific American selected his work on organic computing as one of ‘Ten World-Changing Ideas’ in 2011, and he was named in Forbes‘ list of top 15 education innovators in 2012. Anant, a pioneer in computer architecture, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the ACM.

He hacks on WebSim, an online circuits laboratory, in his spare time. Anant holds a Ph.D. from Stanford and a bachelor’s from IIT Madras.

Chandrika Bahadur is Director for Education Initiatives at the SDSN, based in New Delhi. Previously she was a consultant to the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore. From 2011-2012, she worked with Columbia University, helping the Government of Jordan in designing its poverty reduction strategies. From 2008-2011, she was advisor to the Chairman and Managing Director at Reliance Industries. Her primary responsibility was to help in the setting up of Reliance Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic foundation focusing on education, health, rural development, and urban renewal. In this role, she helped develop an overall strategic framework for the Foundation including its core areas of work, organizational structure, budgets and partnerships.

From 2001-2008, Chandrika worked with the United Nations in different roles. In her last assignment, she was a Policy Advisor at UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy in New York, working in Africa to help Ministries of Finance and Planning align their strategies to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) across 20 countries. From 2003-2006, she was part of the leadership team of the UN Millennium Project, an advisory group convened by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to recommend strategies for the MDGs. She co-authored the final recommendations of the project presented to the UN Secretary-General, Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals. As part of this work, she guided the analytical and substantive research of task forces on hunger, education and gender equality, and poverty. From 2001-2002 she worked on trade and HIV and AIDS programs at the United Nations. She has prior teaching experience at Harvard and Columbia universities.

Chandrika holds a Masters degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a BA (Honours) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Nigel Fisher’s most recent assignment was in the role of UN Assistant Secretary-General/Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis, responsible for articulating and initiating an integrated, multi-sector and multi-partner response to the regional crisis.

Between February and July 2013, he acted as Special Representative of the Secretary-General, heading the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, with responsibility for oversight of all UN military, police and civilian activities, focusing primarily on the promotion of inclusive political dialogue, security sector reform, strengthening of the rule of law and of national governance institutions.

Immediately prior to this role, Mr. Fisher completed an assignment as Senior United Nations System Representative supervising the 200-strong UN interdisciplinary team’s contribution to the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment in Haiti, following the earthquake of January 12, 2010. Before returning to the United Nations in Haiti, Fisher had been President and CEO of UNICEF Canada for almost five years, focusing on advocacy for children, corporate social responsibility and resource mobilization for UNICEF programs worldwide.

His UN career has predominantly been in conflict- and crisis-affected countries: besides serving in Afghanistan, Haiti, Mozambique and Yemen, he was UNICEF’s Special Representative for Rwanda and the Great Lakes region of Central Africa in the immediate aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.

He has spent much of his career in evaluating, developing and applying standards for the protection of child soldiers and of children affected by armed conflict, as well as on humanitarian reform, civil-military relations, governance and institutional reform. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria in Canada and is a member of a number of boards and advisory panels working on issues related to child soldiers, trauma recovery, community-based education and grassroots development.

In 2013, he was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada and was the recipient of the Medal of Honor of the Canadian Medical Association. In December 2014, he was awarded Canada’s Pearson Peacekeeping Medal. A Canadian national, he is married, has two daughters and lives in British Columbia.

Julia Gillard was prime minister of Australia and leader of the Labor party from 2010 to 2013. She is currently Chair of the Board of the Global Partnership for Education, which mobilizes global and national efforts to achieve quality education for all.

During her tenure as Prime Minister, she delivered nation-changing policies including reforming Australia’s education at every level from early childhood to university education, improving the provision and sustainability of health care, aged care and dental care, commencing the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities. Before becoming Prime Minister, Ms. Gillard was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and Social Inclusion. From 2003 to 2006, Ms. Gillard served as Shadow Minister for Health, followed in 2006 by an appointment as Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations and Social Inclusion.

Previously, from 1998 to 2000, Ms. Gillard was a member of the House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Workplace Relations. In 2001 Ms. Gillard was appointed Shadow Minister for Population and Immigration and in 2003 took on responsibilities for Reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs. From 1996 to 1998, Ms. Gillard served as Chief-of-Staff to the Opposition Leader of the State of Victoria. Prior to entering politics, Ms. Gillard worked as a solicitor in Melbourne with the law firm Slater and Gordon and became a Partner in 1990. Ms. Gillard retired from political life following the 2013 Australian national election.

Ms. Milena Harito was born in Tirana, on October 4, 1966. She is married to Mr. Isidor Shteto and has two children, a son and a daughter. In 1997, she earned a Ph.D. in Communication and Information Technology from Paris VI University, in France. She holds a Master’s Degree in the same field (DESS – Diplôme d’études supérieures specialises) that she obtained from Paris VI in 1993. She completed her five-year university studies in Tirana, at the Faculty of Social Sciences (1984-1989).

Ms. Harito’s career started in the Institute of Information Technology, as Research Fellow in 1989 and continued in France from April 1991 to September 1992, at a private company operating in the field of information technology. Following her Ph.D. degree she was recruited by Europe’s largest telecommunication research center, CNET, at France Telecom, Paris.

She continued to work with France Telecom-Orange in the strategic department and was in charge of relations with the European/French regulatory bodies. She later held managerial positions as head of department in several sectors, ranging from innovation to product implementation.

Ms. Harito was elected as a Member of the Albanian Assembly in the general elections of 2013.

Dr. Amel Karboul was until recently Tunisian minister of tourism. Her mission was to revamp tourism, which represents eight percent of Tunisia’s GDP and enables the livelihood of one-fifth of the population. She was cabinet minister of the Tunisian interim government with the mission of ending the transition phase, organizing transparent elections and ensuring good economic and social governance and policy. Her innovative use of social media to promote the country and youth empowerment in the digital world has earned her international awards.

 

Amel’s extensive corporate and consulting experience since 1996 includes being a project leader for innovation management and supplier relationship for the Mercedes-Benz brand in South Africa and Germany as well as executive for knowledge transfer and leadership development at the Daimler Chrysler Corporate University in USA, Singapore and Germany. She later became a strategy consultant at The Boston Consulting Group in Germany and was then managing partner of the consulting group Neuwaldegg in Vienna, Austria. In 2007, she founded an international leadership and change consulting firm: Change, Leadership & Partners. She is an award-winning executive coach, published author and a trusted sparring partner for CEOs of global corporations as well as family-owned businesses and entrepreneurs. She is visiting professor at Duke CE–ranked #1 in the world in Custom Executive Education by the Financial Times and Business Week from 2003 to 2014.

Amel, Tunisian born and bred, Europe and U.S.-educated, is truly global. Amel is a native speaker of Arabic, French, English and German. She also has knowledge of Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Greek. Amel holds a masters degree with honors in mechanical engineering from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany and earned her doctorate in coaching and mentoring from Oxford Brookes University, UK. She has done postgraduate education in economics in the US and has completed an intensive systemic coaching certification program. Amel is mother of two wonderful daughters.

Daphne Koller is the President and Co-founder of Coursera, leading the growth and nurturing of Coursera’s partnerships with universities. Previously, she was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years. She is the author of over 180 refereed publications appearing in venues such as Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics. Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012 and Newsweek’s 10 most important people in 2010.

She has been honored with multiple awards and fellowships during her career including the Sloan Foundation Faculty Fellowship in 1996, the ONR Young Investigator Award in 1998, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 1999, the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award in 2001, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004, and the ACM/Infosys Award in 2008. Daphne was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014. Her teaching was recognized via the Cox Medal for excellence in fostering undergraduate research at Stanford in 2003, and by being named a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.

Professor Ju-Ho Lee served as Minister of Education, Science, and Technology of the Republic of Korea (2010-2012). Before joining the ministry as Vice Minister in 2009, he was Senior Secretary to the President for Education, Science, and Culture. He has been noted for his education reform endeavors and active lawmaking as a member of the National Assembly (2004-2008). His policy entrepreneurship began when he worked as a research fellow at the Korea Development Institute (KDI) and as a professor of KDI Public Policy and Management.

He has written many articles and several books including Private Tutoring and Demand for Education in South Korea (2010) and Positive Changes: The Education, Science & Technology Policies of Korea (2012). He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Seoul National University and his Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University in 1990.

Strive Masiyiwa is the chairman and founder of Econet, a diversified telecommunications group with operations and investments in Africa, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Asia Pacific. His business interests also include renewable energy, water treatment, Coca-Cola bottling, financial services and hospitality.

Masiyiwa serves on a number of international boards, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Africa Against Ebola Solidarity Trust, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Advisory Board, the Africa Progress Panel, the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board for Sustainable Energy, Morehouse College and the Hilton Foundation’s Humanitarian Prize Jury. He is one of the founders, with Sir Richard Branson, of the global think tank, the Carbon War Room, and a founding member of the Global Business Coalition for Education.

Masiyiwa currently co-chairs the AU/WEF platform for investment in African agriculture, known as Grow Africa, and recently took over the Chairmanship of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) from Kofi Annan. In 2012, Masiyiwa was invited by President Obama to address leaders at the Camp David G-8 Summit on how to increase food production and end hunger in parts of Africa. In 2014, the Chair of the African Union (AU), Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, asked Masiyiwa to help mobilize resources for Africa’s response to the Ebola outbreak. This was the first time the AU had asked a business leader to undertake such a role. Masiyiwa, with the help of other leaders, set up the first ever Pan-African fundraising campaign known as the Africa Against Ebola Solidarity Fund.

As a philanthropist, Strive Masiyiwa and his wife Tsitsi Masiyiwa are members of the Giving Pledge and finance the Higher Life Foundation, which provides scholarships to over 42,000 African orphans.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He is co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project. Sachs is also one of the Secretary-General’s MDG Advocates, and a Commissioner of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Development. He has authored three New York Times bestsellers in the past seven years: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). His most recent books are To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (2013) and The Age of Sustainable Development (2015).

Professor Sachs is widely considered to be one of the world’s leading experts on economic development and the fight against poverty.  His work on ending poverty, promoting economic growth, fighting hunger and disease, and promoting sustainable environmental practices, has taken him to more than 125 countries with more than 90 percent of the world’s population.  For more than a quarter century he has advised dozens of heads of state and governments on economic strategy, in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Sachs is the recipient of many awards and honors, including membership in the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Society of Fellows, and the Fellows of the World Econometric Society.  He has received more than 20 honorary degrees, and many awards and honors around the world. Professor Sachs is also a frequent contributor to major publications such as the Financial Times of London, the International Herald Tribune, Scientific American, and Time magazine.

Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years at Harvard University, most recently as Director of the Center for International Development and the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

Kartik Sawhney is a junior at Stanford University majoring in Computer Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Human Computer Interaction. He is very passionate about tech for social good, and is always looking out for opportunities to use his technical skills to do something meaningful. Kartik feels strongly about universal access to virtual resources and has been involved in several projects for improving the lives of people with disabilities. He has also worked with non-profits and tech giants including IBM Research and Microsoft, helping to improve their accessibility efforts. Additionally, Kartik has worked as an accessibility advisor for several organizations including Stanford University and startups in the Bay area. Currently, he works on Project STEMAccess that seeks to make math and science accessible for blind students in the developing world.

At Stanford, Kartik worked with the Human Computer Interaction group as an undergraduate research assistant on the Flash Orgs project which seeks to organize crowd workers through a systematic virtual interface. As a part of the project, he automated the hiring and on-boarding process for crowd workers by implementing a first-come, first-serve hiring model. Besides research, he is involved with several other student groups, and holds leadership positions including co-president of Power2ACT (the disability group on campus).

Kartik has been honored with several national and international awards and scholarships for academic excellence including India’s highest honor, the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievements. Other awards include the National Talent Search Scholarship, Lime Connect Fellowship, Google Lime Scholarship, and the 1st All-India Rank in the National Cyber Olympiad. Recently, in recognition of his work highlighting universal access to education, Kartik was selected as one of the 60 winners of the prestigious 2016 Queen’s Young Leaders award.