The Young Geniuses are not just looking for money - they want to make a difference! Read Dhaval Chadha's Story

The amazing emerging trend amongst the best, the brightest and the most passionate young geniuses of out time, is that they authentically want to make a difference. The big house, the fancy car, the title nor status - does very little for them. They want to innovate to create a better world. When I look at my daughter and their friends, they commit themselves to a different and higher standard in life – giving back and following their dreams. Dhaval Chadha’s story gives us some insights  into what really matters to the emerging leaders of our world!



DHAVAL CHADHA


              “I grew up right across the street from
               what I am pretty sure was and continues to be
               the second largest slum in India; it is gigantic”

My story begins in New Deli, India. I grew up in an apartment complex in a neighborhood called Janak Puri. It was one of the only middleclass apartment complexes in India at that time. My grandfather worked in government intelligence and it was his apartment. I grew up right across the street from what I am pretty sure was, and continues to be the second largest slum in India. This resulted in my having a really interesting mix of friends; all of us kids that lived in the apartment building played together with the children of the domestic workers and gardeners that worked in the complex. I knew that some of my friends were poor however I saw very little difference between us as human beings. We were innocent kids so we did not discriminate or exclude anyone; to us, we were all alike. We just had fun playing football and cricket together. 

Now that I am older it is interesting to reflect back on those times; I now understand how very different things were for those who lived on the other side of the street. Everyday at sundown we would go home to very different realities. For me, it was a warm shower, mom’s food, studying and going to sleep in a nice warm bed. The next morning I would have a good breakfast and go off to school. For my friends who lived in Sagarpur, after sunset many had to go to work, take care of a drunken father, and help a mother who worked fulltime at three different jobs.  In spite of our different circumstances, to me these kids were just my friends - we were all the same. That was a defining experience in my life. I learned to value inclusion at a very young age.

“The United World College works to make education a force to unite 

 people, nations and cultures 

for peace and a sustainable future.”

My next life changing experience happened in high school. My parents always emphasized education so I had the opportunity to study at New Deli’s best high school. One day I heard about a two-year program called the United World College. It is an international high school that had campuses in 13 different countries. It was started in the 1950’s, at the height of the cold war by Kurt Hahn, a German educator. He was commissioned by NATO to create a school for the future. Hahn believed, if students were brought together from all over the world, they would learn from each other and we could began to overcome cultural, racial and religious misunderstandings. This would help to avoid future conflicts. The United World College works to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future. The values they promote include are: International and intercultural understanding; the celebration of differences; personal responsibility and integrity; mutual responsibility and respect; compassion and service; respect for the environment, and a sense of idealism and personal challenge. Students from countries around the world come together and study about international issues with a strong focus on international affairs; religious tolerance; community service and inclusion. 

I had the opportunity to study at the campus in India. It sat on a hill in the forest in the middle of nowhere. There were 200 students from 80 countries represented. By the time I was 17, I had friends from all over the world. The school also focused a lot on community service and global affairs. Every student was required to complete 150 hours of community service and we had weekly meetings to discuss issues of socio-economic and political relevance from around the world. The school attracted really dynamic people who were interested in social change; people who at 16 and 17 years old, were willing to leave their families and countries to live and study in this special school in India. So it was a very intellectual and dynamic group. It was an amazing experience. 

“The striking thing about UWC is that they embrace the entire world across all divides of race, history, culture, wealth, religion, economic status and political beliefs: they are unique and they are conscious of their responsibilities.”
Nelson Mandela, Honorary President

After having this really intense experience, I wanted to attend a university that would continue to provide me with a quality and inclusive education, so I applied and was accepted into Harvard. To my surprise, Harvard was a very different experience than my high school years at UWC. While I was happy and appreciative that I was accepted and had the opportunity to study at Harvard, the students were driven by a very different set of values, such as financial rewards and status, and far less interested in global affairs. I felt that my peers in high school were much better informed about world affairs, or at least much more interested. For example, while I was at UWC there was a civil war in Sierra Leon and over lunch we would have hour-long conversations about the conditions there as well as other developments around the world. At Harvard my peers wanted to talk about business, grades and social class. Even though they were very talented people, I found them to be much more mechanical and a lot less passionate. They would do things out of habit or precedence rather than exploring their creative, passionate side. I almost transferred universities a couple of times but I decided to stick it out believing that what does not kill you strengthens you. I soon found a group of friends that shared my passion, which also made this decision easier to see through.

A defining moment in my life was when a friend of mine, who had sensed my frustration at Harvard, gave me some wonderful advice. He suggested I spend a year abroad, test my frontiers, gain my perspective and then come back. So I decided to spend a semester in Brazil. I moved to the Northeast part of Brazil; learned how to speak Portuguese and I experienced the amazing colorful Brazilian culture.

Growing up I was raised amidst a lot of suffering; a lot of poverty but given how we lived, I did not absorb what that poverty and suffering did to people; I was desensitized, I was use to rationalizing it. When I came to Brazil I was faced with unfamiliar images and armed with a more discerning perspective. I became much more sensitive, much more critical about the affects of the suffering induced by poverty – it jolted me into action. I realized that all this suffering was going on and although I studied it, and I talked about it at UWC - I was not doing anything about it. So while in Brazil my thesis research was about innovative social action models in the NE region of Brazil that were self-sustainable.    

          “What can I do that would have the biggest impact

            while I am a senior at Harvard?”

When I got back to Harvard I asked myself – What am I going to do? My reality was that I had another year at Harvard. I asked myself; What can I do that would have the biggest impact while I am a senior at Harvard? The answer came to me very quickly. During the year I was in Brazil, my peers had done internships at business consulting firms or large banks on Wall Street. My friends and I were struggling with what we were going to do when we graduated. The Office of Career Services and the entire culture at Harvard promoted careers in banking, consulting or in the financial sector on Wall Street. They did not do much for student that wanted to go into careers in science, media, the arts or social service  - there was no support system for us. The CDI’s of the world don’t have the same recruitment strategies or recourses to send 10 executives to Harvard to take students out to diner and seduce them. The job of the career services office should be to serve all the students yet the recruiting sessions would only have the Wall Street and financial consulting executives in attendance. So my friends and I decided to do something about it. 

“I saw a lot of people who came to Harvard wanting to change the world, and left going straight to Wall Street, I wanted to change that.”

I was taking a class with professor Marshall Ganz at the Kennedy School at Harvard at the time. He taught us the principles of distributive leadership. Professor Ganz is credited with being the architect of the successful grass-roots organizing model used for President Obama’s winning 2008 presidential campaign. His class was very practical – we had all the theory but we were required to run our own project for 10 hours a week. My project became mobilizing students and the university to change the monolithic career recruiting practice. I wanted my peers to be able to go into the careers of their choice with the support of a premier academic institution like Harvard. The way I looked at it; if everyone was going into careers in banking or Wall Street just to make money we were just promoting greed, so on what bases were we calling ourselves a premier academic institution. I felt there was a strong ethical vacuum at Harvard and we really needed to do something to create leaders of tomorrow that can have a positive impact on society. I saw students that had the talent and the desire to make a positive difference in society, but they were disillusioned with the lack of support from the university. I saw a lot of people who came to Harvard wanting to change the world and left going straight to Wall Street. I wanted to change that.

Drew Faust was the president of Harvard. She was new at the time with a new vision a new agenda for Harvard. She was very attentive to the students. She would show up in the dinning hall, eat with the students ask them for their ideas. I was at lunch one day talking to a mentor of mine about my idea and she said “Look, Drew Faust is over there, why don’t you go talk with her”. So I pulled up my chair at the table where she was talking with of students. As she was getting ready to excuse herself I said “ President Faust can I make an elevator pitch to you?”. She said of course, and I told her about my idea. Soon after that conversation President Faust called me to her office for a meeting. She told me that her first priority was to establish a council for the arts and that next year she planned to pursue my idea. I responded by telling her that I was a senior and would not be at Harvard next year and I would like to do something about this issue this year. 

       “That was the starting point of the journey 

         that got me much more grounded in social action

        rather than just expounding theory”

So we organized students; we had a huge conference where we brought people in from non-profit organizations, Apple, ABC, Google, community action groups,  even Hip Hop groups.  All kinds of folks from Boston and NY came to help us answer the question; What does it take or me to pursue a career in my field of interest? The non-profits were telling us we needed to run after NGO’s and talk them into interviewing you. When Wall Street wants to hire 30 people they interview 300, while the NGO’s don’t pursue candidates – you have to pursue them. It was a completely different strategy. 

I also spoke to Marshall Ganz and asked him if he knew anyone at the Boston Globe that could give us media coverage of this event so we would have outside visibility. I believed that outside visibility would help Harvard to move quicker. Marshal said “No but I do know someone from the New York Times”. I got in touch with the journalist at the New York Times and they ran a story on the cover of the print and internet version. That brought a lot attention to what we were doing. Over the next two years the Career Services Department was completely transformed. It now has a permanent student liaison position to act as a voice for the students – to keep them updated on the student needs. Because of this work, I was nominated for the Paul Revere Forthingham Commencement award for excellence in character and service to the university. That was the starting point of the journey that got me much more grounded in social action rather than just expounding theory.

One of my professors at Harvard was a Brazilian professor in the Law school.  He asked me what my future plans were. I told him that I had won the Benjamin Trustman Fellowship postgraduate fellowship to spend another year in Brazil in a non-profit.  He told me about CDI and helped me to get in touch with Rodrigo. I have been at CDI for almost two years. 

The first 10 months I spent at CDI I was a volunteer. I started out working in fundraising and then pushed my way into the Clinton/Bush Initiative, convincing Rodrigo that he could use a hand during the event in New York. I paid my own way and had a free place to stay so Rodrigo agreed. We met a lot of people; developed a lot of relationships and all of the relationships we developed from that conference became mine to manage. I manage CDI’s relationship with The GoodHeart Foundation and our partnership with Google and the Motorola Foundation. 

Now I have moved into strategy and consulting and incubating the CDI LAN initiative. CDI LAN is a new social business that has spun off from CDI, focused on turning cyber-cafes into centers for learning and inclusion. CDI LAN will be offering a range of new services in e-leaning, e-gov, e-health, finance, and employability to transform these micro-enterprises into centers for digital inclusion. 

CDI Consulting is another new social business spin-off at CDI that is focused on creating new models of business that have triple bottom lines – economic, ecological and social. Our clients principally include big corporations that are looking to do something that has a social impact. It also includes social entrepreneurs and social sector organizations that are looking for new models of revenue.  We also plan on incubating our own initiatives, CDI LAN being the first case of this kind of project in our portfolio.

My time at CDI has helped me to understand where my talents can be applied. The social sector needs managers, doctors; finance people, lawyers and it was always difficult for me to envision just where I fit in.  I feel confident now that my set of skills lie in developing strategy. Personally I have learned a lot being close to Rodrigo and Florencia. I have had good mentors and I been able to grow and develop.

MY VISION FOR CDI 

“My dream for CDI 2016, is that we have influenced the civil society, companies and the government in Rio, and then, the global community, to create a better and more sustainable world.”

The direction we are heading in consulting is helping companies to rethink their business to become socially responsible. We are living in a time of extreme environmental degradation; high economic inequality and corporate greed that results in inequities in incomes and power. So helping corporations to move to a more sustainable, more efficient and more responsible way of working is greatly needed. We need to help them to understand that this approach can be practical, profitable and a better way of doing business. At the same time we want to help NGO’s to adopt some of the for-profit models so they can grow and become self-sustainable. 

My dream for CDI 2016 is that we have influenced civil society, companies and the government in Rio, and then the global community, to create a better and more sustainable world. This goal is not just the responsibility of government, or businesses or NGO’s, it requires we all work together to change the world. 

MY CORE VALUES

I am not a big fan of organized religion. – that said, I am a very strong believer that every person has an ethical reasonability to do what is  “good” or “right”!  Without appealing to absolutes, I am confident that in almost every situation, we know what the “good” or “right” choice is; the challenge is in making sure we make that choice.

I never want to stop growing intellectually. I look for people and experiences that challenge me to grow and expand. I believe in continual learning, growing and pushing my limits. 

OBSTACLES 

          “I was also challenged to constantly defend 

            a world-view that was more social and 

            contrasted with my classmates"

The biggest obstacle I have faced so far was the culture I first encountered at Harvard. After spending my last two years of high school at a school dedicated to community service, global affairs, international tolerance and matriculating with extremely passionate students from 80 different countries, I found Harvard to be in sharp contrast. Although many of my peers excelled in academics, sports, the arts etc, I found them to be very disinterested in global issues such as the war in Sudan or the elections in Iran. 

Although many of them were highly talented and were doing amazing things like making discoveries that was breaking new ground in medicine and biology, they did these things perfunctorily and without passion. Everything was more mechanical than inspired. I was also challenged to constantly defend a world-view that was more social and contrasted with my classmates'. While I felt that Harvard should be creating the next generation of socially responsible leaders, what I saw was a peer group more interested in making it to the Forbes' billionaire list. I almost transferred out of Harvard twice but decided that in fact, the world thought more like my peers at Harvard than at UWC. If I was to be successful in whatever I was to do; I had to learn to engage people that did not think like me. Once again I understood, that what does not break you makes you stronger.

In retrospect, the decision to study at Harvard was absolutely crucial to my development. Apart from testing my boundaries and inspiring me to be a stronger person, I am extremely grateful a very rich educational experience and cannot imagine how things would have turned out otherwise. I was challenged socially in the beginning, and intellectually throughout my years at Harvard and I am definitely better off for it.

MY MESSAGE 

“To the cynics - I used to be one of you

until I realized that cynicism

is just a manifestation of cowardice.”

To the Cynics: I used to be one of you until I realized that cynicism is just a manifestation of cowardice. Act first and you will begin to believe automatically.

To the Hopeless: I used to be one of you until I realized that hopelessness is just a manifestation of laziness. Act first and you will begin to hope automatically. 

To Young People: While many people are convinced that economic growth is linear and that development will bring benefits to everyone, keep in mind that we live in a world and planet that is finite and has finite resources. The logic of linear growth is necessarily flawed and it is time to radically rethink our civilization, production and habits. We must seek inspiration in the circular processes that nature has been engaged in for eternity if we are to have the least chance to survive and prosper sustainably. 

Dhaval has moved in the direction of his personal vision - to create workspaces, organizations that unleash the human potential. He is still a friend of CDI and works to promote CDI's vision which has confluence with his own.

The world is changing before our very eyes - It is a wonderful thing!

May all your beautiful hopes and dreams come true!

Michele

Transformation Catalyst

www.dreammakers.org