Fellowships for budding leaders

Fifty students are set to get a one-of-its-kind leadership exposure

With an aim of providing breeding ground for future leaders from among young Indians, the Young India fellowship was announced this week, by the International Foundation for Research and Education (IFRE) in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

The IFRE will select 50 academically brilliant students from all disciplines, and will nurture them for one year through classroom lectures and industry training. The classroom lectures will be delivered by several eminent faculty members, including Kaushik Basu, chief economic adviser, Government of India; Ramachandra Guha, writer and historian; Radha Hegde, professor of New York University; Vivek Bhandari, director of the Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) and A.K. Shiva Kumar, adviser to UNICEF-India.

Thanks to the collaboration with Pennsylvania University, there will be a dozen faculty members from the Ivy League varsity involved in the programme, as well.

The purpose of this fellowship is to inspire a multi-dimensional approach among potential leaders. This will be achieved by training them in a wide variety of subjects (26 in total), which include, economics (both at the micro and macro levels), international relations, social anthropology, psychology, philosophy, writing and critical thinking, among others.

The training received by the students will transcend classroom instruction because all the fellows will be mentored by academic and industry powerhouses such as NR Narayan Murthy, co-founder, Infosys; Deepak Parekh, chairman, HDFC; Analjit Singh, chairman, Max India; and Uday Shanker, CEO of Star India, among others. “Mentors have been chosen from different areas of education — the social sector, research, industry and environment,” says Dr Pramath Raj Sinha, director, IFRE.

The fellows will also be given an opportunity to “work and learn” for nine months in projects in the private sector/ government sector, NGOs and consulting firms.

Those who want to apply must be students in the final year of their undergraduate/ postgraduate programmes (without gap year)/ graduates with less than two years of work experience. Students from any discipline or language are encouraged to apply as long as they are proficient in reading, writing and speaking English.
Last date to apply is March 30.

HT Image

Fact file
The Young India Fellowship is a one-year programme with an assortment of courses taught in varied disciplines.

Mentors include Narayan Murthy, Analjit Singh, Deepak Parekh, and Uday Shanker while Kaushik Basu, Ramachandra Guha, Vivek Bhandari and Radha Hegde, who will teach courses.

The Fellowship is fully funded but you will not get any university diploma/ degree at the end of it.

Last date to apply is March 30

Visit www.youngindiafellowship.com for details