By Gena Lux

Thursday, Feb. 27 – the day most Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) teams were nervously anticipating – had finally arrived. After four days of coaching, judging and presenting, the competition prize winners were announced during the University of Washington’s GSEC Award Banquet at the Grand Hyatt Seattle.

This year’s competition was the 10^th annual GSEC, hosted by the Global Business Center at the UW Michael G. Foster School of Business. The GSEC provides student teams from around the world with a platform to present their business plans to a panel of judges as well as to the public, compete for prizes, and most importantly, raise awareness about some brilliant initiatives that can provide solutions to some important global problems. Continue Reading

Each one of our students within the Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership program have been drawn to holistic leadership through a range of life experiences, with alumni taking “transformational leadership” to a variety of career applications. Luke Black, a 2012 alumnus, shares what brought him to transformational leadership. Continue Reading

By Kelly Gibbs

When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed an anti-gay law in late February that effectively criminalizes the LGBTI community of over half a million people and any who support it, he sent a strong message to the world. Now, one of his spokespersons is tweeting provocative responses to the world’s reactions, including such missives as “The West can keep their ‘aid’ to Uganda over homos; we shall still develop without it.”

A law promoting bigotry of this magnitude and forcing the opinion and compliance onto its citizens is a sad step backwards for a country that has had a recent history of promising growth.

The law, called the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014, was passed by the Ugandan parliament to place practicing homosexuals in jail for life instead of the original death penalty proposal in December.  The law mirrors the appalling treatment of the LGBTI community seen in many regions in Africa, notably in South Africa, where “corrective rape” is used to systematically rape or sexually assault perceived or actual gay women and men in order to ‘cure’ them of their homosexuality^1. Ironically, South Africa is one of the only African countries to allow gay marriage. Continue Reading

By Katherine Schroeder

Studying overseas can provide an opportunity to gain valuable experience in the field of international development. However, the experience often comes with a high price tag, one that many college students cannot afford.  Also, many schools lack study-abroad programs in developing countries.

Help is available through several federally-funded grants, including the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Program (FLAS). Each provides full or partial funding for students studying languages and volunteering in a variety of countries.  Knowledge of a native language is helpful in understanding culture and being able to manage programs and direct workers abroad.

The CLS program is a fully-paid summer scholarship that is open to undergraduates travelling to a variety of countries including China, India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. Participants can receive academic language credit for their time abroad and live with host families while participating in intensive language classes as well as volunteer work. Continue Reading

By Kelly Gibbs

Global Washington recently hosted its monthly Executive Director Roundtable featuring Ndudi Ikoro Chuku, Executive Director of Mission Africa. The organization aims to empower children and families in the remote villages of Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya by providing support in three core areas: education, healthcare and poverty alleviation.

Ms. Chuku talked about her work in Africa and the challenges of running a small NGO, and she shared insights on her strengths and weaknesses as a leader. This led to a robust discussion among everyone in the room, touching on issues that cross sectors and issue areas. Chuku was joined by several leaders of other GlobalWA member organizations: Theo Chocolate, Literacy Bridge, The Post Harvest Project, Antioch University and Dwankhozi Hope. Continue Reading

By Swagato Ganguly

Bill Gates believes India is winning the fight against poverty. In an interview with Swagato Ganguly, Gates, co-chair and trustee, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, explained points from his annual newsetter, including why the eternal poverty of poor nations is a ‘harmful’ myth, how there’ll be almost no poor countries by 2035 — and huge milestones for India:

How do you see poverty reduction in India?

The proportion of poor in India fluctuated widely in the past, but overall the trend is downward. The government and its partners across sectors have done a great job with a number of programmes aimed at alleviating poverty and its impacts, including subsidising food and other necessities, increased access to loans, improving agricultural techniques and price supports, and promoting education and skill development. Continue Reading

By S. Harpal Singh

When it comes into being, it appears the Telangana State will have to accord a top priority to the land issues, going by the opinions of respondents of a study currently being conducted by the Landesa, an international NGO working in the field.

The necessity to give importance to land reforms stems from the surprising finding that there is a lack of knowledge on the laws or procedures pertaining to the issue not only within the communities at large but even among the Revenue officials. Continue Reading

By Deborah DiSanzo

One expert explains that, to face the future, the health care industry must do more than simply update the hospitals of the present.

To envision and build tomorrow’s hospital, one thing is clear: We’ll only get so far by re-engineering the hospital of the present. The hospital of the future will not be a hospital at all. Instead, it will be an inventive health delivery network that will require all of us — industry, clinicians, caregivers, families, and patients — to coordinate efforts in new ways, so we work together more efficiently to serve more people, with better outcomes at lower costs and higher quality standards. We must break with traditional models and norms and challenge ourselves about how and where care is offered. We need to cooperate through arrangements like private-public-government partnerships that make powerful and meaningful associations among all people, technology, services, situations and costs involved in health delivery. Continue Reading

By Jamie Joseph

Philanthropy is now on the scale the likes of which the world has never seen.

Community/Politics: Helping the most vulnerable through philanthropic efforts has become incredibly advanced in the last decade, with the tools of technology, the power or human connection, systems and collaboration proving that the smartest person in the room is the collective.

Two prime examples of strategic philanthropy, with a focus on alleviating the suffering of the poorest, are the world’s wealthiest private foundation with an endowment of nearly US$40 billion, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the foundation that recently celebrated its centennial year, started by one of the founding fathers of philanthropy, Rockefeller.

Both foundations have successfully broken down the barriers between the private and the social sector, filling niches governments could not or would not address. Both have played a leading role in addressing international health concerns, infectious disease control and eradication, and both foundations have dealt with a healthy dose of controversy. Continue Reading

By Anna Kramer

Oxfam invited typhoon survivors to share their self-portraits. The results aren’t what you’d expect.

Be honest: raise your hand if you haven’t taken a selfie sometime in the past year.

Hand still down? Okay, that’s what I thought.

Hey, there’s no shame in it. From world leaders to astronauts to reclusive electronic musicians, we’ve increasingly made selfies part of our shared global vocabulary. (I confess I’ve taken one or two of them myself.) Whether you find it narcissistic or empowering, a selfie is an affirmation of identity, presence, and connectedness: an avatar of yourself in a given moment, shared with the world. Unlike a portrait taken by someone else, it’s an autonomous statement, a way of saying “I’m here.”

That’s why I was so intrigued by a series of recent photos from the Philippines. Oxfam’s team invited people living in Tacloban, one of the areas hit hardest by Typhoon Haiyan, to take selfies and share the messages they’d like to send to the global community. Continue Reading