intentBlog:

Building a Better World through Global Exchange, Dialogue and Emerging Leaders' Education

Dear ATCA Colleagues; dear IntentBloggers

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

It was a great pleasure to meet Prof Dan Esty recently from Yale University, USA, who is the Director of the Yale World Fellows Program. When he outlined the objectives of the World Fellows Program, it was heart warming to note that step by step, Yale was seeking to build a better world through a grass roots diplomacy initiative based global exchange, dialogue and emerging leaders' education.

We are delighted to receive the submission for ATCA from Prof Dan Esty, "Building a Better World through Global Exchange, Dialogue and Emerging Leaders' Education" to initiate Socratic Dialogue and to seek nominations for the World Fellows Program. Yale will cover all costs, including housing, transportation, and healthcare, and provide a generous stipend for those selected.

The Boston Globe has written that "if there's one school that can lay claim to educating the [American] nation's top national leaders over the past three decades, it's Yale." Yale alumni have been represented on the Democratic or Republican ticket in every US Presidential election since 1972. Yale-educated Presidents since the end of the Vietnam War include Gerald Ford, George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton and George W Bush, and major-party nominees during this period include John Kerry (2004), Dick Cheney (VP, 2000, 2004), Joseph Lieberman (VP, 2000), and Sargent Shriver (VP, 1972). Other Yale alumni who made serious bids for the Presidency during this period include Howard Dean (2004), Gary Hart (1988), Paul Tsongas (1992) and Jerry Brown (1976, 1980, 1992). Yale President Richard Levin attributes the run to Yale's focus on creating "a laboratory for future leaders."

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School. Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Particularly well-known are its undergraduate school, Yale College, and the Yale Law School, each of which has produced US Presidents and foreign heads of state. Also notable is the Yale School of Drama which has produced many prominent Hollywood and Broadway actors. The university's assets include a USD 18 billion endowment (the second-largest of any academic institution in the world) and more than a dozen libraries that hold a total of 12.1 million volumes. Yale has 3,200 faculty members, who teach 5,200 undergraduate students and 6,000 graduate students. Yale uses a residential college housing system modelled after those at Oxford and Cambridge in England. Yale and Harvard have for most of their history been rivals in almost everything, notably academics, rowing and football. Yale president Richard C Levin summarised the university's institutional priorities for its fourth century: "First, among the nation's finest research universities, Yale is distinctively committed to excellence in undergraduate education. Second, in our graduate and professional schools, as well as in Yale College, we are committed to the education of leaders."

Prof Dan Esty is the Hillhouse Professor at Yale University with faculty appointments in both the Environment and Law Schools. In addition to his teaching duties, he serves as Director of the Center for Environment and Business at Yale (CEBY) s well as of the Yale World Fellows Program. He also spends time advising companies on how to fold environmental thinking into their business strategies. Prof Esty is the author or editor of nine books and numerous articles on environmental policy and the relationships between the environment and trade, globalization, security, corporate strategy, competitiveness, governance, and development. His most recent book (with Andrew Winston), Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, explains how an environmental lens can enhance business strategy.

Prior to taking up his current position at Yale, Prof Esty was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics (1993-94), served in a variety of senior positions in the US Environmental Protection Agency (1989-93), and practiced law in Washington, DC (1986-89). As EPA's Deputy Chief of Staff and later Deputy Assistant Administrator for Policy, he had responsibility for policy development on a range of issues including air and water pollution control, food safety, waste management, and regulatory reform. He also helped to negotiate amendments to the Montreal Protocol, the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, the environmental provisions of the NAFTA, and several elements of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. He sits on the Advisory Boards of several companies (including Coca-Cola, Unilever, and EnvironmentIQ) and environmental groups (including Resources for the Future, American Farmland Trust, and Connecticut Fund for the Environment/Save the Sound). He has served as an environmental strategy advisor to companies in a range of sectors and industries. Prof Esty spent the 2000-01 academic year as a visiting Professor at INSEAD, the European business school in Fontainebleau, France. He lives in Cheshire, Connecticut with his wife and three children. He served four years as an elected Planning and Zoning Commissioner in Cheshire. He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Building a Better World through Global Exchange, Dialogue and Emerging Leaders' Education

There is much talk these days about building bridges and enhancing international understanding and cooperation. And even the most cursory review of the world situation reveals that the need is real.

Five years ago, Yale University launched an innovative program to respond to this need. Each fall, the Yale World Fellows Program brings together 18 emerging leaders at an early mid-career stage of their professional development for an intensive, four-month leadership training curriculum that focuses on critical global issues. While at Yale, the Fellows expand their intellectual horizons, become the nucleus of a growing network of collaborative global decision makers, help to train America's next generation of leaders -- the students at Yale -- and then return to their home countries to help build the international bridges that are so necessary, particularly given current global political tensions.

Aimed at those in business, government, the media, military, labour unions, and non-governmental organisations, this special initiative seeks to build on Yale's tradition of training US leaders, including four of the last six presidents, hundreds of top corporate executives, leading journalists, and the heads of many civil society organisations. Now entering its sixth year, the Yale World Fellows Program has created a group of nearly 100 rising stars from more than 60 different countries.

This year's cohort brought a wide range of individuals to New Haven, including:

· László Szekfu, 34, one of Hungary's most successful information technology and biotech entrepreneurs;

· Xenofon Avlonitis, 37, a top official in the Greek securities and exchange commission;

· Nicky Newton-King, 40, deputy chief executive officer of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange;

· Saleh Barakat, 39, founder of the Agial Art Gallery in Beirut, Lebanon and a leading expert in contemporary Arab art;

· Oyungerel Tsedevedamba, 40, a key advisor to the Mongolian prime minister on privatisation as well as being an anti-corruption and human rights activist;

· David Fuentes-Montero, 36, who just stepped down as finance minister of Costa Rica;

· Jessica Faieta, 42, a top United Nations Development Programme official, who spent the past two years as chief of staff in the UN Secretary General's office, working with Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown.

I believe the World Fellows Program represents an important model for global dialogue and leadership development. It serves to close gaps in understanding between the US and the world and also helps connect -- or re-connect -- the US to the rest of the world. At a time when the United States is rethinking its engagement in Iraq and elsewhere, and with the recent election of a new Congress, the United States can benefit from alternative models of engagement and international collaboration, like the one presented by the Yale World Fellows Program. Likewise, it is in the rest of the world's interest to continue to connect to the United States and to improve its understanding of American society.

The Program aims to accomplish three key goals. First, it provides emerging leaders with an exceptional opportunity to enrich themselves by enhancing their knowledge and skills, learning all they can about cutting-edge issues, and developing a strategic vision for their own professional trajectories and societal impacts. In their special global-issues seminar, taught in short modules by Yale's top faculty, they explore such topics as war and peace, international relations, economic development, public health, corruption, environmental change, justice, identity, and the role of religion in public life.

Second, the World Fellows are seen as teachers, as well as mid-career students. They guest lecture in classes, talk to student groups, give campus-wide lectures, and contribute to the informal dialogue and learning in the dining halls, courtyards, and corridors for which Yale is famous. In doing so, they are helping to deepen the understanding of all those at Yale about the complexity and diversity of the world.

Third, the Program seeks to build a network of global decision makers who have a fundamental, mutual understanding born of common experience and information. The model naturally fosters collaboration and a commitment to shared success. With a network that grows larger and more varied with each passing year, past Fellows maintain contact not only with those in their own cohort but also with those who were at Yale in previous or successive years. In fact, every two years, Yale organizes an all-expenses-paid Return to Yale Forum for all alumni of the Program. This ensures that the network remains robust and supports fresh thinking.

While the Yale World Fellows Program cannot single-handedly rebuild damaged trust, it offers a path toward a world of peace, prosperity, and mutual understanding. In the spirit of this holiday season and in light of our common commitment to Socratic Dialogue and a better world, I invite all of the members of the ATCA network to nominate candidates for the Yale World Fellows program.

Nominations for the 2007 Yale World Fellows Program, which will run from mid-August through mid-December 2007, are welcome through December 31, 2006. Please visit the Program's website for more information and making nominations. When making the nomination please state that you learnt about the World Fellows Program via ATCA. Applications are due by January 12, 2007. We consider applicants from any field or discipline, excluding those who are solely academic or scholarly in their focus, and we target people who are roughly five to fifteen years into their professional development. Candidates must be citizens of countries other than the United States and highly functional in English. Yale covers all costs, including housing, transportation, and healthcare, and provides a generous stipend.

Best wishes for the season

Dan Esty

[ENDS]

We look forward to your further thoughts, observations and views. Thank you.

Best wishes

For and on behalf of DK Matai, Chairman, Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance (ATCA)