Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute Launches Second Annual Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program

Harvard professors and alumni offer unique opportunity for first generation college students from Africa, Middle East, and South Asia.  

Harvard University professors will welcome 70 first-generation college students from Africa, Middle East, and South Asia, to the Second Annual Crossroads Emerging Leaders program in Dubai, a unique, fully-funded leadership development opportunity for accomplished, ambitious young people who have already had to overcome significant barriers to higher education.

During the pilot program in 2017, 50 students engaged with each other and faculty through the renowned Harvard Business School case-study method of teaching and learning, exposing them to real, contemporary business scenarios. Executives from leading private and publicly-owned multinational companies visited the classroom to interact with students and offer their invaluable wisdom and experience. 

The successful cohort of 2017 included a young woman from  a city in Pakistan with the country’s lowest female literacy rate. An Indian student had worked as a garbage collector to pay his school fees.

The 2018 program will see a larger, even more diverse group of students exposed to a greater variety of disciplines within Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics (STEAM), business and leadership.

Harvard faculty leading the program include Tarun Khanna, Director, the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute, Harvard University, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School; Karim R. Lakhani, Charles E. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, co-director of the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard, and the faculty co-founder of the Harvard Business School Digital Initiative.

The program will cover the costs of international travel, board, lodging and class materials, for students who are the first in their families to attend college and may also be facing challenging financial and social circumstances that discourage them from applying to postgraduate schools.

The program is organized by the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute (SAI), Harvard University, and the Harvard Business School Club of the Gulf Cooperation Council, with the support of  DIFC, Air Arabia, the Dubai Future Accelerator, and  Expo 2020.

 For more information, please contact hucrossroads@gmail.com or visit The Crossroads website.

About SAI: Founded in 2003 to further Harvard University’s engagement with South Asia, SAI is a university-wide research institute at Harvard that engages faculty members, students, and in-region institutions through interdisciplinary programs to disseminate knowledge, build capacity, inform policy, and engage with issues that are shaping South Asia today.