Speaker Series

The Center for Social Impact and Innovation at GCNYC Presents:

RESILIENCE AND RECONSTRUCTION: Exploring the Impact of
COVID-19 on The Common Good 

The Center for Social Impact and Innovation at GCNYC is excited to announce the Virtual Speaker series for fall 2020. The series, titled “Resilience and Reconstruction: exploring the impact of COVID-19 on The Common Good,” will be an international event, connecting people across several time zones, expressing the global impact of Glasgow Caledonian University’s mission for The Common Good.    

GCNYC Vice President and Provost, Jacqueline LeBlanc remarked, “I am thrilled that the first speaker series sponsored by GCNYC’s Center for Social Impact and Innovation will include representation from across the GCU community. Using Zoom as the platform offers us the exciting opportunity to make this a global event. We have much to learn from each other and from the exchange of ideas across campuses during these challenging times.” 

#COVIDANDCOMMONGOOD 

How COVID-19 Helped Children Living in Orphanages
featuring Caroline Boudreaux 

Date/Time:
January 28, 2021
12:00 EST
17:00 UK
23:00 BD  

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
Kick off the winter portion of the Resilience and Reconstruction Series with Keynote Speaker Caroline Boudreaux. 

The Miracle Foundation is an Austin, TX-based international nonprofit that has helped thousands of orphaned and vulnerable children. Their goal is a loving family for every child and the end of the need for orphanages. They believe that together, we can change the way we care for children and help to get them into stable, loving, nurturing environments. 

Bio:
Caroline Boudreaux is a social entrepreneur and founder of the Miracle Foundation.  

In May 2000, on Mother’s Day, Caroline’s life changed forever as she visited India for the first time and met a group of more than 100 orphaned children. The children were bald and filthy with empty-looking eyes — yet she saw their incredible potential. Since that day, she has committed her life to helping orphaned children realize that potential.  

Caroline is a firecracker Cajun who was born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana and attended Louisiana State University where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. Prior to her nonprofit work, she had a successful career in media advertising. For her achievements with the Miracle Foundation, Caroline was presented with the Hope Award in 2005, the Impact Award in 2008 and the United Nations Humanitarian Award in 2017. Caroline is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum and has and has completed executive programs at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Diplomacy, the India School of Business and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. 

Higher Education Leadership During COVID-19
featuring Pamela Gillies, Vice Chancellor of GCU and President of GCNYC

Date/Time:
February 4, 2021
12:00 EST
17:00 UK

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
GCU President Pamela Gillies will host this seminar.

Bio:
Professor Pamela Gillies CBE, FRSE has been Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University since 2006. She is a Founding Member of the Global Advisory Council for the African Leadership University; a Board Member of the RFK Human Rights UK Board and Trustee of the Caledonian College of Engineering which has been operating successfully for over 20 years in Muscat, Oman where 50% of our engineering graduates are women. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the British Council from 2008 to 2014, Pamela is also a founding Board member of the Grameen Caledonian College of Nursing in Dhaka, Bangladesh where the University has operated in partnership with the Grameen Healthcare Trust since 2010 and is a member of the Board of Trustees for Glasgow Caledonian New York College (GCNYC).

Awarded the honour of CBE for services to education and public health in December 2012, Pamela was elected a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 2002; a Fellow of the Academy for Social Sciences in 2005; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2015 and became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Glasgow in 2007.

Previously Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Nottingham, Pamela has worked in Geneva as a member of the World Health Organisation’s Global Programme on AIDS (1989-90); at Harvard University as a Visiting Professor and Scholar in Health and Human Rights (1992-3); as a Harkness Fellow of the Commonwealth Fund of New York; and in London on a seconded post as the first Executive Director of Research at the Health Education Authority for England (1996-99). She is the founding patron of a school for children of sex workers in Domjur, Kolkata and has researched and written widely on HIV/AIDS, health development, and inequalities in health focusing on the potential of social action for health.

COVID-19 and Authoritarians
featuring Umut Korkut

Date/Time:
February 11, 2021
12:00 EST
17:00 UK

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
This seminar will reflect on accountability, responsibility, and solidarity at the intersection of democratic and authoritarian governance facing the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bio:
Umut Korkut is a Professor in International Politics at Glasgow Caledonian University. Umut serves Political Studies Association (PSA) as Trustee and International Lead, the International Political Science Association (IPSA) as Executive Committee Member and coordinates three EU funded projects. He is interested in how political discourse, aesthetics and visual imagery create audiences, following this theoretical interest across various empirical fields central to European politics such as gender and politics, populism and migration. Prof Korkut is starting to lead a new Horizon 2020 project entitled D.Rad: De-Radicalisation in Europe and Beyond: Detect, Resolve, Re-integrate (2020-2023) in December 2020.

How India Could Mitigate the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis
featuring Madhu Acharyya

Date/Time:
February 18, 2021
12:00 EST
17:00 UK

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
The COVID-19 pandemic has already caused significant physical, social and economic harms across the globe. It is inevitable that the world population have to bear the damages caused by COVID-19 for several decades, if not generations. Arguably the national governments quickly responded to control its impact with priorities on public health where economic and social impact were largely ignored.  In essence, the management of such a large-scale catastrophe requires a balancing act between protection of public health, servicing the national economy while restoring the long-term social values. We have developed an optimization model for the decision makers that exhibits such a balance with constraints. We derived this model from the perspective of India, which is ranked as one of the top victims of COVID-19 as well as the second highest populated country in the world. The output of the model is expected to help the policy makers to develop recovery strategies for post-COVID-19 disruptions.

Bio:
Madhu is a senior lecturer at GCU London. He obtained his PhD in Enterprise Risk Management from the University of Southampton, UK. He also holds MSc Insurance & Risk Management from City University, London. His research focuses on the broader perspective of enterprise risk management, risk & governance, climate risk, cyber risk, alternative risk financing & micro-insurance. Madhu has published research papers in several peer reviewed journals including Geneva Papers on Risk & Insurance, Risk Management & Insurance Review. The ultimate aim of his teaching & research is to bring the efforts of academics and practitioners closer to promote the risk and insurance education. Madhu leads the MSc Insurance and Sustainable Risk Management course at GCU London. Professionally Madhu is a qualified chartered insurer with the Chartered Insurance Institute, London and fellow of the Institute of Risk Management, London.  He is closely associated with the operational and cyber working parties at Institute of the Faculty of Actuaries, UK. He is the winner of the 2006 SHIN research excellence award presented by the Geneva Association (Switzerland) and the International Insurance Society (USA).

The Future of Work and the Equitable Workplace
featuring Christine Farrugia and Jeffrey Brown

Date/Time:
February 25, 2021
12:00 EST
17:00 UK

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
The workplace is facing unprecedented disruption. Increasing levels of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are replacing workers and reshaping the world of work. McKinsey estimates that by 2030 about half of work activities could be automated, forcing workers into new lines of employment. In addition to technological disruption, demographic forces are also affecting the workplace. The increased longevity of human beings means that many careers will span sixty years or more and people will pursue several careers over their lifetimes. Evolving demographic trends are also opening the pipeline to employment for a more diverse employee population that increasingly operates across national borders.

The workers poised to navigate these transitions most successfully are those with higher levels of education and the resources available to continuously pursue education throughout their lives, leaving many workers out. This session discusses the technological, demographic, and global trends facing the future of work and explores the question of how leaders in business, government, and community organizations can ensure that the future of work is equitable for all.

In this session, Christine Farrugia will discuss themes from the Great Skills Gap: Optimizing Talent for the Future of Work, forthcoming from Stanford University Press, and Jeffrey Brown will discuss his work with the Bertelsmann Foundation’s initiative on Transatlantic Cities and the Future of Work.

Bio:
Christine Farrugia is Director of Research Initiatives at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies where she conducts research on the future of work, lifelong learning, and educational access. She is also a Research Associate with the Cross-Border Education Team (C-BERT) and a faculty member with Glasgow Caledonian New York College (GCNYC). Previously, she was research director at the Institute of International Education (IIE) where she led Open Doors, a large-scale annual survey of international educational exchange in the United States, and other research on international academic mobility. Dr. Farrugia has collaborated and consulted extensively with colleges and universities, higher education associations, and national governments on wide-ranging higher education issues, including admissions and enrollment management, educational and career pathways of students, strategic internationalization, and data-driven planning. Dr. Farrugia is co-editor of The Great Skills Gap: Optimizing Talent for the Future of Work, forthcoming from Stanford University Press in June 2021. She holds a Ph.D. from SUNY-Albany and M.A. and Ed.M. degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Jeffrey leads projects and thought leadership on artificial intelligence, the future of work, and, more broadly, new technologies and their impact on international affairs. He builds networks and platforms – such as “the-future-of-work.org” – to help policymakers, business leaders, and citizens advance innovative strategy and policy for the digital age. His writing and videos have been featured in Axios, Politico, Forbes, Euractiv, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Wilson Quarterly, and he has spoken at the OECD, Politico, the Paris Peace Forum, the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the City of New York, and at various diplomatic missions.

An avid intrapreneur with a strategic mindset, he thrives in unstructured, international environments where problem solving, political savvy, and strategic thinking are vital to achieving success. Jeffrey speaks fluent French and some Portuguese, and is passionate about developing a career at the nexus of business, digital policy, and international affairs.

Jeffrey holds an M.A. in Political Science & European Studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for which he completed one year of study – in French – at Sciences Po Paris. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from St. Olaf College.

Building Disaster-Resilient Society
featuring Josephine Adekola

Date/Time:
March 4, 2021
12:00 EST
17:00 UK

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
Mitigating the likelihood and consequences of disaster risks can be a challenging societal task. Hence, it is essential to enhance the ability of society to cope with disaster risk. This lecture covers the trends of societal risks and impacts over the last 10 years and sets out ways to build resilience to disaster risks. By drawing on community resilience, this lecture will consider ways in which different stakeholders can play a role in building societal resilience to disaster risks.

Bio:
Dr. Josephine Adekola, BSc MSc PhD, is Programme Lead and Lecturer in Risk Management at Glasgow Caledonian University. Josephine has extensive research experience and publications in areas of risk and resilience with interest in community resilience and risk assessment.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Common Good; African Leadership University
featuring Fred Swaniker

Date/Time:
March 11, 2021
10:00 EST
15:00 UK
18:00 EAT

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
Fred will share his reflections on understanding the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for dramatic change and social improvement within the context of the future of Africa as well as his work in founding the African Leadership Group.

Bio:
Fred Swaniker is the founder and CEO of the African Leadership Group – an ecosystem of organizations that are catalyzing a new era of ethical, entrepreneurial African leaders. Over the past 15 years, he has founded and led the pre-university African Leadership Academy, the African Leadership University, the African Leadership Network and ALX — a next-generation leadership development and talent sourcing platform. Collectively, these endeavors aim to transform Africa by developing 3 million African leaders by 2035. He is also the founder of The Room, a talent agency for the world’s ambitious doers.

Fred previously worked as a McKinsey consultant before earning an MBA from Stanford and becoming an entrepreneur. He is an Echoing Green Fellow; Aspen Institute Fellow; and most recently, was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s most influential people of 2019.

Economics of Free Speech
featuring Dmitri Shuster and Greg Magarshak

Date/Time:
March 11, 2021
12:00 EST
16:00 GMT

Eventbrite Link: Click here to register!

Description:
The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced our greater than ever dependence on the internet and its service providers. Dmitri Shuster of GCNYC and Greg Magarshak, an entrepreneur and a contributor to the ongoing debates on the evolution of the web, grapple with the internet transformation of free speech. Over the last fifteen years or so, the internet evolved into a digitalized form of a multi-layered, feudal-like structure. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon are gatekeepers controlling wide swaths of front to back webspace. Smaller enablers of the existing internet such as root certificate authorities, the domain name systems effectively consider the world wide web a “leased” property.  The public, under this internet regime, is treated as a captive audience of digital serfs. The implications are dire on multiple fronts. In exchange for the perception of easy access to the web and its services, the users give up their privacy and rights. They are stratified, divided, and manipulated economically and politically. Worse, the amplified speech on the web is inevitably and inherently inequitable.

What would constitute progress from the current system? Dmitri will probe Greg’s views on the paths of sustainable and beneficial web infrastructure.

Bio:
Dmitri Shuster is currently an advisor to QBIX – a social network and community app and most recently was a Co-Head of Global Trading Division & Global Head of Foreign Exchange, of Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank as well as a Board Member of Global FX Division of the Global Financial Markets Association. He received his BBA from Baruch College and his MBA from Stern School of Business, NYU and is presently a candidate for the DBA in Finance at the University of Manchester, UK.

Gregory Magarshak is the founder and CEO of QBIX, a decentralized platform for building open-source web and social apps to build communities. Gregory is an internet entrepreneur and innovator who is passionate about the power of social tools to improve people’s lives. With QBIX, Gregory has released apps to 6 million people in over 110 countries, working to decentralize social networking and enable communities to manage relationships with their own members.