The Biden Administration Must Democratize International Education. This article, by Mittal Institute Research Affiliate Dinyar Patel, originally appeared in Foreign Affairs.
By Keya Lamba and Shweta Bahri, Harvard College ‘20. Earth Warriors is an early childhood education curriculum that uses play-based learning and a solutions-oriented approach to teach young children (3-7 years old) about climate change and sustainability. Climate change, pollution, and unsustainable levels of waste have led to an environmental crisis that can no longer be denied, and it is crucial for people to start building sustainable habits and reducing waste production from a young age to combat it. Yet, less than five countries in the world have climate change as part of their mandatory education curriculum, and none have it as part of their early curriculum.
The Mittal Institute’s annual Seed for Change (SFC) competition aims to develop a vibrant ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India and Pakistan, offering grant prizes to interdisciplinary student projects that have the potential to positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. We recently spoke with a few of our past winners of the SFC competition — the teams of Umbulizer, Gramhal, and Meet — to learn how their social enterprise initiatives in Pakistan and India have grown since the time they one.
Through the Mittal Institute’s 2020 Seed for Change Exploratory Grant program, recipients Sahana Bail and Kanishk Mittal set out to create a preventive COVID-19 health education program in India. Their three goals are to educate students of the program about the benefits and logistics of proper mask use and hand hygiene, early recognition of COVID-19 symptoms and what to do if a child has it, and bust the myths related to the intersection of food and COVID-19.
Last week, the Mittal Institute collaborated with Network Capital to hold an information session for the upcoming 2021 Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program (CELP), where Harvard faculty and industry members discussed the impact of the program. Numerous former Crossroads students, who now belong to the vast alumni group network of the CELP program, joined the virtual event to share their experiences from their cohorts and the impact that it had on their education and careers.
By Asmer Asrar Safi, Hamid Nawaz, Hajra Malik, and Ramsha Bilal. Lahore is a city rife with unexplored heritage sites and cultural landmarks locked between urban developments. Yet, the unavailability of tourism services means that Lahore has been unable to fully reap the benefits of being a popular tourist destination in Pakistan. It is to bridge this gap that our team set out to create a third-party, tourism facilitation service app, “Naqsha Nigar,” predicated on creating preset and customizable tour plans for the average smartphone user.
Last summer, Nosher Ali Khan (Harvard College ’23) traveled to Hunza, a valley within the mountains of Karakoram in Pakistan — a place where poetry and music have built the identity of its people. There, he met with folk music artists and listened to their music, developing a project to film their music and share it with the world.
Last year, the Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program received 6,093 total applications from 115 countries spanning the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, South Asia, and US students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Selected students joined the Crossroads Virtual Program via Zoom to attend an interdisciplinary seminar series uniquely designed for them, curated to encourage their individual professional and academic aspirations. The Crossroads Virtual Program featured 13 fascinating and insightful lessons given by senior Harvard faculty across a range of disciplines.
The Seed for Change (SFC) competition aims to develop a vibrant ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India and Pakistan through an annual competition run by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University. Grant prizes will be awarded to interdisciplinary student projects that positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. Applications for the 2021 cycle must be submitted by February 26, 2021.
Each semester, the Mittal Institute offers grants to Harvard students to further their research, language study, or internship opportunities. This semester, 14 students were awarded grants to carry out projects during the 2021 Wintersession, ranging from research on a timeline of South Asia history from the dawn of Indus valley civilization until 1947 CE, to language studies on Sinhala, Bangla, Kashmiri, and more.
Are you a Harvard student looking to fund your language study, internship, or research on South Asia next summer? Applications for our graduate and undergraduate grants are open for Summer 2021! Be sure to apply by Friday, February 12, 2021 at 11:59 PM.
By Kalpana Mohanty, Doctorate of Philosophy ‘25. In a household with a Tamilian mother and a Bengali father, the common language at home was English. As a result, I had an asymmetric grasp of Hindi where I was able to understand the language almost fluently, but unable to speak it back with the same fluency. My three months of intermediate Hindi lessons at Zabaan, suggested by Professor Maya Jasanoff, was incredibly valuable in helping me rectify this.