2023 Meta-Dots connections week 3. http://www.economistdiary.com http://www.ed3envoyun.com https://pioneer.app/changeteacher/progress-updates/382f460e/2023-01-23
Some extraordinary leaps this week which started 22 years ago (2001). While we all know the worst news of the new millennium was 9/11 , I vote the best news : new university cooperations concerned with community livelihood creation to be empowered ny millennial women.
My understanding - please correct reporting errors (mine alone)
Initially brac university was born by Fazle Abed (http://abedmooc.com ) in 2001 around 2 unique motivations: Abed wanted a channel for open sourcing knowhow to become his legacy of 50 years of 1 billion asian women (1billiongirls.com ) building community replicable mother earth. Since 2016 emergent in the cooperation un2.0.
Much remains misunderstood about brac's first 15 years of building nation's health services and agriculture as last mile livelihood-action platforms - and how these were scaled 100000 people communities at a time. Abed's prior job as regional ceo for royal dutch shell meant he knew where to source what knowhow- probably the most remarkable connections were made in cooperation knowhow between tropical Bangladesh, tropical inland china and Unicef's James Grant https://www.worldrecordjobs.com/search?q=grant . There is one definitive book on how this emerged written by a modest couple who worked night and day with fazle Abed and his first wife wo sadly died in year 9 of brac http://blog.brac.net/she-was-the-heart-and-soul-of-brac/ ). Quiet Revolution by Martha Chen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Chen
COOPERATION PURPOSE: UNIVERISITY & MILLENNIALS AS SUSTAINABILITY GEN
Year 2000: First, a Bangladeshi friend observed universities are just about only organisational form from millennium 2 that attracted investment over many centuries of sustainability. Second, somebody at a silicon valley millennial brainstorm, probably mrs steve jobs, publicly challenged abed why don't you share your brac knowhow and partner platforms globally? See footnote on why abed found the timing of "please take brac global" a mixed blessing in engaging what is the West's perceptual branded world of human aid. (see journal of marketing management triple special issue brand reality 1999 - possible future discussion topic : what happened when I debriefed harvard on this journals evidence of corruption in big 5 accountancy's branding -semi-confidential case the death of Andersen Accounting firm )
Whats eyeopening for those who celebrate millennial empowerment by new universities: track back which countries ambassadors in Abed meetups wanted to design at least one new university whose female graduates maximised sharing actionable research not making their alumni a separate network. I believe Singapore was the most consistent supporter of Abed 21st C Universities; even though this country as Asean soul has to be careful- its always connected cultures as its dna but under many american administrations connecting cultures is given a hostile press and as for the systemised blindness of the BBC ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs_wSBdX6Tw no wonder english language and the west has lost trust as lead region of sustainability inter-generation.)
At one time Singapore's Mahbubani (probably the nation's chief diplomat in the era of Lee Kuan Yew https://www.worldrecordjobs.com/search?q=Kuan ) was in the middle of uniting universities. Indeed he was first core adviser to Qatar's womens campus led by first lady sheika moza (for me far the most real of the current un sdg advocates https://www.unsdgadvocates.org/ ) . Once an isolated suburb of Qatar, today education city is fully integrates if you watched the world cup. Its also where launch of the world's first education laureates took place around fazle abed and his alumni of 2011 https://www.wise-qatar.org/education-reform-fazle-hasan-abed/ . See Qatar foundation triad of summits WISE (ed) WISH (health) and the yet to emerge WISS (can female sporting superstars change human sustainability as well as who are millennials most actionable connecting heroines)
Recently Mahbubani seems to have lost favour inSsingapore as he too overtly promoted us-china youth exchanges and transnational future leaders. Still Singapore was the last country to award sir fazle a national honor https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/s-asian-diaspora-sir-fazle-hasan-abed-honoured-1829479 . He couldnt attend as this was a month before his death. unite what VC Vincent wasn't nominated to deputise in receiving the prize. Can we now find out who in Singapore is still in the middle of millennial transnational university cooperations? On top of which this week Vincent Chang tactfully said goodbye to Bangladesh universities and extraordinary grassroots tributes have come out recognising his 4 years bridging Abed's death, succession rivalries, and covid to name but 3. Hopefully Vincent can zoom with us soon as before being headhunted by abed he was developing Shenzen-hk universities. I realise my account above over-simplifies deep challenges he has mediated out of Dhaka.
FOOTNOTE
Abed found being asked to mediate Western Jobs-economics challenge a mixed blessing especially as skoll was soon ro nominate the first 6 world social entrepreneurs was pitching 3 hours of abed dvds agaist 3 hours of yunus (whose stories appealed to perceptions not brand chartering reality) More importantly to brac's local business model for the poor, -in supporting women empowered nation building of bangladesh- back in 2001 abed was now about 5 years into connecting a Japanese silicon valley partner having started brac net https://www.catholicuni.com/search?q=5.3 (mainly an intranet) and he was racing to make sure that the poor lead the value chains of about 20 markets -brac enterprise model-most agricultural but eg also the $1 birthing kit as a new addition to being the wholesaler of most affordable basic medicines across the nation (the way he had built rural health service around para-nurses - a model which redesigned china's barefoot doctors because bangladesh in 1972 didnt have enough medics for the cities least alone the next 25 years of health service in villages with no electricity and no telecoms until 1996 (solar-mobile led out of MIT and UAE!!.)
So the university as co-creation space for 21st C jobs was driven by graduate level research even if in bangladesh you could not start a university without undergraduates subscriptions. (And indeed Abed wanted to be the university of 21st C civil society - where students became their generations civil servants leaping ahead digitally in every way that bangladesh as the world basket case of 1971 started as the most disadvantaged .gov
By the time I met fazle abed's team in 2009 his favorite conversation in the world was brainstorming with Asian ambassadors which countries wanted to design one or more university linkins cooperatively creating extra 50 million new jobs as each university linked in with brac. During my father's last year we initiated dr yunus birthday party in dhaka -perhaps the first brainstorm between brac directors and grameen directors (at the time I was surprised how reluctant yunus was and how energetic brac's top team were to participate. Soon after my father died , and the japan ambassador to Dhaka chose two by 40 person brainstorms chaired by fazle abed where it became clear that abed always saw bangaldesh women as co-creators of microeducationsummit not microcreditsummit. Fortunately Glasgow's Adam Smith scholars and MITs digital revolution designers were there to fill in dots never mentioned in the 20 years of microcreditsummit originated 1997 out of DC by the clintons, Spain by Queen Sofia, and as early as 2002 demanding Nobelisation of Yunus.
Abed entering his last decade (the 2010s) declared there were at least 3 ways brac uni new-to-the world research branches would prove contribution of first 50 million new jobs- designing playschools 3-6 - needed the world over but where brac would take on deepest designs of playschools in poor village and in emergency - see journal https://inee.org/journal and Ultra poor digital enhanced mapping of direct transfer partnerships : a solution designed before microbanking for the 15% of village mothers too poor to take out loans until they have had 2 yeras of one-one coaching and asset transfer - https://www.catholicuni.com/2021/09 . To these abed helped merges his medical college (James Grant Public School of Health https://bracjpgsph.org/ ) with the national institute that had innovated oral rehydration and become cholera related diseases world epicentre - abed also won the gates senior prize for the most effective model of villagers ending tuberculosis which had put gates abed jim kim and eg larry brilliant in a huddle - one of whose outcomes was ai of plagues must be a first app of AI.
In typically modest fashion, abed was prepared to see his 2 biggest research areas get the nobel prize for economics on other academics names. See his hi-trust partnership with the middle east toyota franchise Abdul Latif which had become embedded at MIT J-Wel & Jpal https://www.google.com/search?q=j-wel+j-pal+%22sir+fazle%22+OR+%22fazle+abed%22 just as the lead digital research of the world's most populous cashless bank www.bkash.com shared its western flows through MIT quadir family
One extra cherry on the top the female head of gov affairs for microsoft has just stared a whatsapp on social impact of jobs https://www.linkedin.com/posts/samiraakhan_layoffs-techforgood-techlayoffs-activity-7024457998936801280-MdP9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop I gather jack and samira khan already well connected with each other. .. Back in the USA I have luckily studied the scaey impacts of columbia university since 2008. Initially geroge soros and gates and kim all started connecting columbia university's medical school with brac's james grant public school of health. It was expected this could make new york intl hq of Brac knowhow but columbia univeristy had already thrown out its edgy connectors of the earth institute (a thing that hadnt been politically correct with bush). So it is that https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmcrow/ michael crow is america's dna of universities sharing graduates of sustainability down at arizona state university. And soris' hope of a central european new university look lost- he was expelled from his and von neumans home nation of hungary. There is a chance that vienna will rebuild the new uni of europe by linking in with IT university in Geneva which is where the tech of global media started in 1865 and the region where the goats of matsh were educated before emigrating to princeton. The rest of that story is in my father's biography of von neumann and the survey the economist has conducted on neumann's behalf since dad's princeton meeting with von neumann in 1951 http://neumann.ning.com.
To Vincent I know I have over-simplified- please suggest a time when we can zoom between usa and asia and you.
chris EconomistDiary.com tracks 3 learning curves that have often been abused by media since 1865 - adam m=smith moral sentiments action learning -join 265th summit glasgow university union june 2023; what started in 1843 when a weekly newsletter was designed to help 20 something queen victoria change empire constitution from slavemaking rulers of waves to common wealth; what happened from 1951 when the economist was briefed by the goats of maths to continuously debate exponential threats and ops of the age 2025-1945 when peoples -with 8 billion human intellects and unlimited AI) decided whether or not to unite cooperations around preventing extinction) http://neumann.ning.com
Their differences in demographics, experience, and their mindset and motivations is one reason colleges are struggling to keep them engaged, enrolled, and eventually get them to graduation.
For the most part, colleges are still designed like they were for the student of yesterday—a lot of affluent, well-prepared high-school graduates (of all racial and ethnic backgrounds) whose parents attended college.
Today, students come to college from many different backgrounds and are looking for many different outcomes from their experience. There is no one persona of “undergraduate student” yet many colleges lump their students into two groups: traditional (18-22 year olds) and nontraditional (everyone else).
This week on the Future U Podcast, we talked to three different personas of students who in some cases are increasingly common on campuses or at real risk in our higher ed system:
Desirée Vanderloop, CSM, CSPO, a senior at Morgan State University in Maryland, who started her college journey 14 years ago.
Lisa Kennedy, a sophomore at Georgetown University, who is a first-generation student from rural northern Wisconsin.
Jalen Stubbs, a senior at George Mason University, who is Black at a predominantly white institution. Last spring, men made up just over 40% of the nation's undergraduate students, which is an all-time low, and the enrollment declines were especially pronounced among Black and Latino men.
Listen to the conversation or read the transcript.
My three takeaways:
🧮 It's clear colleges need to do a better segmentation analysis of their students or would-be students. What are their motivations and mindsets for going to college? And then build programs to meet them where they are. All three of these students, as you’ll hear, were involved in programs that were integrated across the years and curriculum that gave them a sense of belonging and purpose.
📬 Hear how these students found their universities. For all the marketing about what makes colleges and universities unique, this still remains an incredibly messy process that's full of a lot of friction.
🎓 Finally, institutions need not only to market themselves but also higher ed in general. This is a new marketing challenge because there is increased questioning about the value of higher ed.
Thank you to Dr. Bridget Burns of University Innovation Alliance (UIA) for joining me as the guest co-host on this episode taped at the The Chronicle of Higher Education's Festival in DC.
Give a listen and let me know what you think below. And then follow Future U Podcast to hear about future episodes.