SAI Executive Director, Meena Hewett, was in Pakistan last week developing our ongoing programs and collaborations with the country.
As special guest at Harvard Alumni Reunion Dinners in Karachi and Lahore, Meena met with more than 50 alumni and current students representing at least 10 different schools from Harvard. Attendees included SAI summer interns along with other Harvard students in the country, some of whom traveled from other cities to attend. Leadership from HBS Club of Pakistan and Harvard Pakistan Student Group co-hosted the events and offered enthusiastic support to SAI’s work.
Over a series of meetings, held in Karachi and Lahore, the SAI team met with academics, practitioners and experts on urbanization. The discussion sought to explore a collaborative project, the “Contemporary South Asian City”, with Professor Rahul Mehrotra at Harvard Graduate School of Design and others at Harvard along with partners across South Asia.
Meeting with Mr. Ahsan Jamil, CEO of Aman Foundation, and Dr. Aamir Khan, Executive Director of Interactive Research Development (IRD), to discuss collaborative research work on healthcare with Professor Peter Berman at Harvard School of Public Health. Meena also met with a number of team leaders at Aman managing a diverse set of healthcare initiatives, including Mental health, Primary healthcare and Disaster Management and Response.
In a meeting with Dr. Ishrat Husain, Dean and Director of Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Meena discussed connecting universities across Pakistan. In such a collaboration, Professor Tarun Khanna at Harvard Business School would speak to students in Pakistan via a series of webinars on the topic of Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets.
In a meeting with Sherry Rehman, former Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, Meena discussed research and internship opportunities for current Harvard students with institutional partners in Pakistan, such as the Jinnah Institute founded by Ambassador Rehman and Tameer Microfinace Bank led by Nadeem Hussain. Ambassador Rehman visited Harvard in February 2012 and met with several Harvard faculty members at a SAI sponsored lunch, in conjunction with a JFK Forum event at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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