The Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) is the flagship program of the President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) and embodies the President’s commitment to invest in the future of Africa. Purdue’s first cohort of Mandela Washington Fellows will be on campus for six weeks between June 17 and July 31, 2016 for intensive executive-style leadership training, networking, community servi
ce, and skills building, followed by a Presidential Summit in Washington, D.C. Through this initiative, young African leaders are gaining the skills and connections they need to accelerate their own career trajectories and contribute more robustly to strengthening democratic institutions, spurring economic growth, and enhancing peace and security in Africa. The MWF is designed to encourage and foster the ingenuity, confidence, passion, and commitment of the next generation of African leaders. It offers the Fellows an unparalleled opportunity to meet and share ideas with American leaders: from community organizers to the President of the United States. Through this Initiative, the U.S. will host 1,000 young leaders at 36 U.S. universities for institutes focused on public management, business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership, and for the first year, a specialized institute on energy. At Purdue University, we will host twenty-five of these leaders for an institute focused on business and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on engineering and agriculture-related innovations and businesses. This Institute is a campus-wide collaboration, co-sponsored by Discovery Park’s Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship and the Center for Global Food Security and the Colleges of Engineering and Agriculture, and with support from the Krannert School of Management and the Office of Corporate and Global Partnerships.
