Turn that Wishbone into a Backbone !

They call him The Great White Hope and when you meet David Patient it is easy to understand the nickname.  He is handsome, healthy, filled with vitality and vision despite his AIDS diagnosis nearly thirty years ago. To receive this diagnosis in 1983 on your twenty-second birthday was a death sentence.  The killer disease was just beginning to be seen and recognized in the hospitals of America. David beat all the odds and now crisscrosses sub-saharan Africa with his partner at Empowerment Concepts, research psychologist Neil Orr, to teach and inspire others to stand up and claim their future. 

They began work with HIV+ people when they were one of the few real voices of knowledge and hope in South Africa in the late 90‘s. Their Positive Health workshops covered everything from how to grow vegetables to the need for friends but the emphasis was always on personal responsibility, choice and the vision of a positive future.  Having worked with thousands, they find their message is true for folks who are positive or negative, teenagers, grannies and everyone in between, corporate teams, government agencies and struggling communities. How do the lessons AIDS taught David figure into their teaching these days?

The first thing he did when given six months to live was to go out to buy a coffin and plan his funeral down to the last detail. He met his fear of death by facing it, then, quickly, turned his attention to the business of living. He bought a house with a thirty year mortgage, began planting trees and dreaming of sailing a yacht. He first bought a coffee mug with an picture on it of himself sailing a yacht at sunrise. Nineteen months later he was steering his own yacht in the waters off the San Juan Islands.

Holding a positive vision of your future firmly in your heart, is a central theme of David’s message and by this he doesn’t mean a whimsical day dream floating about in your mind. No, this is where he sternly instructs you to “turn your wishbone into a backbone.” You must have the capacity to envision yourself fully engaged in that future in a way that makes your heart beat fast. “Find a vision of yourself that blows your hair back.” See it, feel it fully and then begin to walk resolutely towards that future step by step, action by action, choice by choice.
The vision that has held his attention for years is one in which he is speaking to a huge crowd, telling the story of the time when there was a thing called AIDS. It is this vision that informs his instincts, his actions and choices. We haven’t  reached the moment yet when he can tell this tale but we are getting close.At the world AIDS conference in July there they was the remarkable understanding that AIDS is now a treatable disease. It seems miraculous to hear that with proper medical care, an HIV+ person’s projected life span is in line with the general population’s.
As the AIDS conference occurs, I want to recognize David for all the wit and wisdom, information and inspiration he has offered to so many people for so many years. I look forward to being in the audience when his vision happens in real time for he is one of the true heroes of the thing called AIDS. He has given hope and tools to many and his capacity to merge vision with action is a message we can all take to heart.

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How Do You Build an International University From Scratch?

Many scholars have argued with reason that higher-education institutions around the world are highly resistant to change. Some are even more critical, predicting that in the information-based economy, universities are condemned to disappear or become obsolete, at least in the way they currently function. Certainly, fostering and implementing change in colleges and universities can be a daunting task, as witnessed by many institutional leaders who have lost their jobs trying to change the course of their organizations. This sense of frustration in trying to foster change was cogently expressed by President Clinton about 15 years ago at a gathering of higher-education leaders when he sympathized with the work of a president of a higher-education institution and compared it to that of a cemetery’s administrator: they have many people under them, but nobody listens.

In 1998, Arthur Levine compared the challenges faced by higher-education institutions and the typical response to those faced when a ship is sinking after being hit by an iceberg. The captain decides the following actions in order of priority: to save the crew, to make sure that the show and entertainment continues as normal, to repair the ship and, at the end, if time allows, to save the passengers. A response by a university president employing the same rationale might be as follows: efforts are made to protect the faculty, resources are dedicated to assure that classroom activities continue, committees are created to address the problem, and in all likelihood, by the time that results are announced, it will be too late for graduating students.

One of the problems with university reform is that institutions cannot be shut down while repairs are made. But what about creating a new one? Well, that is not easy either, considering all that is required to establish a new higher-education institution. Nevertheless, all over the world many institutions are being created, especially in countries where demographic pressures are such that massive numbers of youth are demanding education. Just to mention some cases, in Mexico in the last six years a total of 105 new universities were established; in India the government has said that to be able to attend the huge demand for higher education it will be necessary to build 1,000 new universities by 2020; in China the number of higher-education institutions went from around 1,000 in 2000 to almost double that at the end of the decade; and in Brazil a total of 1,512 new higher-education institutions were established from 1997 to 2009.

When new institutions are created from scratch, it represents a unique opportunity. During my trips to different countries, occasionally I learn of a new institution being established and I am always curious to know to what extent institutional leaders are simply emulating other institutions, and how much they are willing to risk in doing something innovative and different.

A good example of an institution trying a new model is Albukhary International University (AIU) in Malaysia. Supported by the Albukhary Foundation, and established by a prominent Malaysian entrepreneur and philanthropist, AIU is a non-religious, residential, private institution located in Alor Setar, a community located in the northern part of Malaysia, very close to the border with Thailand. This institution, with superb, brand new facilities, just opened its doors to a first cohort of undergraduate students from 47 countries (with only a small number being from Malaysia). Since all students receive a full scholarship, which covers all tuition and fees, and all living expenses during their entire duration of studies, a necessary condition of admission is that they must belong to a low-income family and to come from an underprivileged or disadvantaged background. In order to develop basic knowledge of English among all students, an optional six-month English immersion program is offered to those arriving with the minimum required TOEFL score of 440. All students begin their regular education with one year of general education content packed into 15 trimester-based courses from mathematics and learning and thinking skills, to leadership and community-service projects. The following three years, students can major in accounting, business administration, or computer science with emphasis on software engineering or networking offered by the school of business studies and information and communications technology. Future plans include establishing a school of humanities and social sciences.

Interestingly, though Malaysia is a Muslim country, AIU is not an Islamic university. Also, interestingly, all students are mandated to conduct community service for the underprivileged and disadvantaged in the local community in which AIU is located. Also they will be required to return to their respective countries at graduation.

As explained by the vice chancellor of AIU, Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, an energetic and well-known educator, and former vice chancellor of the prestigious Universiti Sains Malaysia, AIU pretends to innovate using the metaphor of a “humaniversity” in which they intend to “make available high quality and relevant education based on equity and access with success across the many existing global divides.”

Too good to be true? Of course, it is too early to know how successful AIU may be in accomplishing its goal, and many questions remain to be answered, ranging from its long-term financial viability, to the capacity of graduates to adapt and become effective change agents on their return to their respective countries. Also, formidable challenges remain in recruiting and retaining innovative faculty members also willing to venture into new pedagogical territories, and in creating the adequate environment to fully maximize the multicultural richness existing on campus, just to mention a few. Nevertheless, it is great to learn about efforts happening in the world to recreate higher education. As expressed by Vice Chancellor Dzulkifli, AIU may serve as “a new inspiration for a university of the future” in which graduates may help to “shape the journey to a sustainable and peaceful future.”

What do you think? If you could start a university from scratch, what would be its mission?

This article was originally published here in English, and in Spanish by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Spirit and determination can master any challenge

SOMETHING SHUBHRANSHU is no stranger to Chhattisgarh or journalism. But, as a veteran journalist for The Guardian and BBC, among others, few would have thought he would combine the two.

The Challenge

SHUBHRANSHU CHOUDHARY, a BBC-journalist-turned-activist, felt strongly about the absence of a medium for tribals to communicate with those in authority, and the wider world. “There are very few tribal journalists, and mainstream journalists often don’t understand their language. When I worked with the BBC and travelled to other countries, we used the help of local journalists for translation. But the dialects of the tribals are often not understood outside the community,” he explains. “The lives of the tribals and urban journalists are so removed from each other that, for an outsider, the context is hard to appreciate.” With an estimated 100 million tribals in the country, a solution to this was urgent.

The Idea

IN TRYING TO CREATE THE RIGHT forum for marginalised communities, Shubhranshu was clear he wanted to go the ‘oral’ route. “Poor people, especially tribals, are oral communities. The educated class focusses on reading and writing, but the majority are more comfortable speaking and listening,” he says.

Although he wanted to use the radio, the laws were not conducive for community radio to grow. So he started out online, by setting up an online discussion group CGNet (or Chhattisgarh Net) in 2004 for people to exchange views on issues related to the state. But realising the dismal reach of the Internet, Shubhranshu stumbled upon Audio Wiki, a technology platform developed by Microsoft Research’s India Lab and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that enables phones to record and listen to messages. That’s how CGNet Swara started. It has a Bengaluru phone number on which listeners call and are given two options: 1 to record, and 2 to listen. What’s unusual, though, is that listeners can contribute information as well. Recorded messages come to the Bengaluru server where trained journalists access the system using a web-based interface. A verification and review process follows and once a report is approved, it’s available for playback over the phone. Translated versions are also available on the CGNet Swara website. According to Shubhranshu, 11,000 unique users have registered on the site in the past two years.

The Innovator

40-SOMETHING SHUBHRANSHU is no stranger to Chhattisgarh or journalism. But, as a veteran journalist for The Guardian and BBC, among others, few would have thought he would combine the two. Having studied in tribal schools of Chhattisgarh, he knew he wanted to bridge the alienation that tribals feel from mainstream media. A Knight Journalism Fellow, Shubhranshu also launched an initiative with the help of the Knight International Journalism Fellowships, a programme of the International Centre for Journalists.

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How to Become an Entrepreneur

Becoming an entrepreneur takes time a dedication. One must have focus and a surmounting spirit. One must also have valid and ingenious ideas. At the same time, they must be simple enough to put into practice. Many entrepreneurs become successful later in life.

An Entrepreneur Feeds many Families

Let your idea meet investment!