Twenty-five Mandela Washington fellows from the Young African Leaders Institute (YALI) recently spent the day at Goizueta Business School as part of a six-week visit to various Atlanta corporations and universities.
The fellows spent June 30 on campus learning more about the school and explore what it means to be effective, innovative, and courageous leaders.
Most in the program expressed interested in entrepreneurship through various professional capacities including healthcare, civic support and technology.
Education consultant David Harrington and Google executive Patricia Arundel 11EMBA presented the opening session, in which ideas of innovation were explored. Students also learned about the rise of incubators and successful strategies in design thinking. Harrington and Arundel challenged the fellows to view innovation as process and not an event, and to allow themselves the freedom to fail in the pursuit of success.
Following their time with the Google representatives, the fellows sat down to a lunch session with Goizueta Dean Erika James. Using the case of the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Md., James explained the difference between crisis management and crisis leadership and noted the additional skills and courage it takes to face hardship.
The program, launched by President Barack Obama in 2014, selects 500 fellows from an applicant pool of more than 50,000. The fellows are divided among 20 academic institutions in the United States to study one of three tracks: business and entrepreneurship, public administration, and civic engagement
