Director's Fellows, Pashon Murray and Eman Jaradat, joined the Emerging Worlds team in Nashik, India this past January for the weeklong workshop. In this blog Pashon recounts her time meeting young innovators, working with multiple teams, and inspiring the next generation of young innovators to solve pressing global challenges.
An excerpt of Pashon's post is below Read the full blog on the Directors Fellows website
"On the third and fourth day we listened to people introduce themselves and inspire the students to be better thinkers, creators, entrepreneurs and inventors. The corporate leaders, Media Lab team and others started sharing the challenge statements and the group categories. Each leader and mentor had to introduce himself or herself to the students in the main auditorium. I spoke very briefly during the introduction for Food and Agriculture, Transportation, Waste Management and soil and water. Instead of speaking about Detroit Dirt or my past experiences, I kept it clear and concise about the UN recognizing me for my work in composting and soil. I didn’t want the focus to be on Detroit Dirt only. My role was to judge the talent and be a mentor.
I decided to mentor the Food and Ag group. However, the group had multiple focuses so instead I decided to work with the soil group. Beth and I explained to the whole group the importance of the areas of focus, soil testing, supply chain, and crops. I also reiterated the importance of healthy soil. Four students said they would like to dedicate themselves to soil testing. After some extensive discussion, I couldn’t understand why so many students were interested in supply chain issues. Many felt like the farmer wasn’t being respected in the supply chain throughout India. I understood their passion but some Indian farmers weren’t following protocol for soil testing. Also, many of them have to address other issues before selling crops."
Read the full blog on the Directors Fellows website
