Yale World Fellows Program Launches Year-Long Series on Global Citizenship

This fall, the Yale World Fellows Program will launch a year-long series of public events that will explore what it means to be a citizen in today’s interconnected world.

Capitalizing on the Yale World Fellows’ broad fields of expertise and multinational backgrounds, the series will examine the concept of global citizenship from a variety of angles including the environment, arts, technology, politics and business.

The series will culminate in the Yale World Fellows Program 10th anniversary reunion in October 2011. This “Return to Yale Forum” will be open to all current and former World Fellows, the Yale community, and guests.

The October 20, 2010 kick-off event begins at 5:00 pm with a panel discussion “Taking Stock: The State of the World 2010,” which coincides with the release of the United Nations Population Fund’s State of World Population Report 2010.  The panelists will be:

• Hakan Altinay, Yale World Fellow; former Executive Director, Open Society Foundation-Turkey; current fellow, the Brookings Institution
• Unmesh Brahme, Yale World Fellow; President & Co-Founder, Climate Civics Institute; former Senior Vice President for Corporate Sustainability, HSBC India
• Jimmie Briggs, journalist; author of Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War

The panel discussion will take place in the Parachute Factory Gallery, 319 Peck St., Building 1, New Haven, CT. The gallery is currently hosting The 7 Billionth Person Project, a global, multi-media exhibition. The discussion will be followed by a reception with the panelists and with the 2010 Yale World Fellows. The 7 Billionth Person Project, an ongoing, interactive collection of media submissions that answer the question, “What would you like to share with the 7 billionth person about the state of the world?” Valerie Belanger, Director of Programs for the Yale World Fellows, is curator of the exhibition.

The Yale World Fellows Program is Yale’s signature global leadership development initiative and a core element of Yale’s ongoing commitment to internationalization. Each year since 2002, the University has welcomed a group of exemplary mid-career professionals from a wide range of fields and countries for the four-month leadership program. The Program now boasts a total of 155 Fellows, representing 74 countries.

Subsequent events in the series will be announced.