Two Indians among 16 Yale 2012 World Fellows

Updated on: Thursday, April 05, 2012

Two Indians, Ayush Chauhan, co-founder and Managing Director of design consultancy company Quicksand and Ruchi Yadav, senior programofficer at The Hunger Project will join 14 others from countries like Argentina, Chile, China, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and UK for an intensive four-month period of academic enrichment and leadership training at Yale.

The Yale World Fellows Programme is the University's signature global leadership development initiative and a core element of Yale's ongoing commitment to internationalisation.

So far, nine Indians have been selected as Yale World fellows since the inception of the programme in 2002 and with the selection of two fellows this year, their number has gone to 12.

Among this year's World Fellows are an executive with China Construction Bank, a British military officer who served in command and staff appointments in Afghanistan, an Algerian private equity entrepreneur and a former Argentine minister of economy.

Chauhan heads the multi-disciplinary design and innovation consultancy, working at the intersection of business, development, and culture. He is also a partner at the Box Collective, where he conceptualised and launched UnBox, the first interdisciplinary festival in Delhi bringing together leading voices from across the world for inspiration, debate and reflection.

Yadav, with a background in advertising, human rights and the women's movement in India, has focussed to empower elected women representatives at the grassroots level as key change agents in local institutions of government across seven states in India. Each year, the university welcomes a group of mid-career professionals from a wide range of fields and countries for the Yale Fellow programme.

"The 2012 fellows were selected from a global pool representing thousands of innovative difference makers. We are proud to offer them this unique opportunity to develop their leadership skills while enriching the Yale community through active participation in campus life," said Michael Cappello, director of the programme and professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine. Yale President Richard Levin said the university community is always enriched by the World Fellows.

The 2012 World Fellows will enroll in a specially designed seminar from August to December, taught by leading Yale faculty, audit any of the 3,000 courses offered at the University, participate in weekly dinners with distinguished guest speakers, receive individualised skill-building training and meet with US and foreign leaders.

This year's cohort brings the total number of Yale World Fellows to 221, representing 79 countries.

Yale said its World Fellows Programme aims to cultivate and empower a community of globally engaged leaders committed to positive change through cross-disciplinary dialogue and action. Its three main goals are to provide advanced training to emerging leaders from diverse disciplines and countries, to link this network of world leaders to each other and to Yale, and to expand and deepen international understanding at Yale.

Two Indians among 16 Yale 2012 World Fellows

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