As another academic year comes to a close, we pause to reflect on a year chock-full of lively events, knowledge exchange, and connection-building. The Mittal Institute’s community turned out in full force for our virtual and in-person events in our Cambridge space, our New Delhi office, and other locations across the globe. Learn about 10 of our not-to-be-missed events – please visit our YouTube page for more.
From improving digital literacy in India, to researching ways to prevent Alzheimer’s in Bangladesh and beyond, Harvard’s class of 2024 is full of graduates with big ideas for South Asia. These movers and shakers will now set off across the globe, eager to put into practice their years of learning. We curated a list of profiles on some notable graduates across many of Harvard’s schools — though this list is not all-encompassing, it gives you a flavor of the many ways that our Harvard graduates aim to improve the world. Congratulations, Harvard University Class of 2024!
As the summer approaches, the Mittal Institute extends a warm invitation to Harvard’s community to visit the New Delhi Office. Whether using the office space to conduct research, participating in scholarly discussions, or immersing oneself in the vibrant academic milieu of the region, the office offers a unique opportunity to engage with South Asia’s rich cultural heritage and scholarly legacy. The office has planned several events that will connect Harvard with India’s intellectual scene. Come and be a part of it!
With a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, the Mittal Institute’s Seed for Change competition funds ideas that have the potential for widespread impact in India. View our list of finalists, including this year’s $30,000 grand prize winner who is deploying a network of solar irrigation kits that are shareable via digital platform; and the $5,000 runner-up, a comprehensive intervention program that provides career training and life skills to students in grades 9 and 10.
Reading is paramount, explains Musharraf Ali Farooqi, a former Mittal Institute Fellow, saying, “Becoming a reader is the first step on the path to becoming a self-learner.” A novelist, scholar, and translator, Musharraf is also the founder of the STORYKIT Program, a unique program that inspires a love of reading among Pakistan’s children. STORYKIT boxes teach children the Urdu language, its classical literature, and its folklore through engaging, age-appropriate stories.
In 2023, Storykit launched the Pakistan Spelling Bee, holding competitions for both English and Urdu languages nationwide. Farooqi is leading a Malala Fund supported program to help adolescent female students in Pakistan public schools write about their educational journey. Storykit is also carrying out an internet safety, media literacy and climate resilience campaign for Google Foundation.
Dr. Bharat Vatwani, one of the speakers at LMSAI’s Annual Cambridge Symposium: Science and Technology – the Future of South Asia, is a psychiatrist based in Mumbai who has dedicated much of his professional career to aiding the mentally ill. Together with his wife, Dr. Smitha, he founded Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation in 1988, an NGO dedicated to treating mentally ill and unhoused individuals in India. He shared more about his life’s work in the Q&A below, and previewed what attendees can expect at his fireside chat.
Each semester, the Mittal Institute offers grants to Harvard students to further their research, language study, or internship opportunities. This coming summer 2024, 13 students were awarded grants to carry out projects across five countries, ranging from studies on women in Urdu print culture, to the career mobility of rural-urban migrants in India, to the environmental impacts on mothers with disabled infants, to language studies on Persian, Mewati, and more.
In this second instalment of a new interview series with Mittal Institute’s Climate Change Platform collaborators in South Asia, we spoke with Mihir Bhatt, the director of the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute. An architect and city planner by training and practice, he’s a former fellow with the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University and was deputy lead to joint evaluation of the humanitarian work of both UN and international nongovernmental agencies on tsunami relief and rehabilitation activities in coastal areas of South India, and Indonesia. He was a coordinating lead author of a chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” where heatwaves were a focus.
Nazmul Haque, a current Mason Fellow in ClassACT HR73’s Benazir Bhutto Leadership Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, has a long history of developing public-private partnerships in response to climate change in his home country of Bangladesh. His experience was a case study for a recent symposium, “Climate Change, Public-Private Partnerships, and Social Equity: Lessons from Bangladesh” – also co-sponsored by the Weatherhead Center and the Salata Institute – in which Harvard practitioners and professors gathered to examine and enlarge upon the examples offered by Nazmul’s career. We spoke with him about his commitment to sustainability, and what the symposium meant for him.