Founded in 2011, the Harvard College US-India Initiative (HUII), a student-run organisation, aims to create a dialogue between the youth of India and the US on pressing social, economic and environmental issues.
And when an opportunity to be part of the second edition of HUII’s conference came across, Aditya Nuthakki Prasad, a sophomore from the Class of 2017, was happy to be a part of it.
“The HUII’s biggest event is the conference. As co-chair (along with Parijat Lal), it was my responsibility to provide leadership and vision to the conference. As far as I can tell, I think the conference is the largest student-run conference of its kind in India. We bring 75 speakers for the sole purpose of engaging with college-age students interested to learn. The aim of the conference is to inspire Indian youth to action — to allow our participants to see challenges and opportunities that exist in today’s world, and force them to think about possible solutions,” says Aditya, who grew up in Hyderabad and moved to the US in 2013 after passing out of FIIT-JEE.
“We also have very few Indians directly from India at Harvard — about 18 in total across all 4 years — so HUII provided me with an opportunity to interact with all of them.”
This year, the conference took place in Mumbai on January 8 and 9. And the speakers’ list included Raghuram Rajan (Governor, RBI), Cyrus Mistry (Chairman, Tata Group), Shashi Tharoor (Member of Parliament) and Naina Lal Kidwai (Head, HSBC India) among others.
“For me, the conference was important because I’ve seen how useful it has been to interact with people on the frontiers of their own fields because it teaches you to think more deeply and critically,” says Aditya, who is also involved in the Harvard Financial Analysts’ Club, pursues research under the Mahadevan Group and in free time, plays cricket with the Harvard Cricket Club.
“At Harvard, I’ve had dinner conversations with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, the Governor of Washington and the head of opposition in the South African Parliament. I’ve been to the Australian ex-PM Kevin Rudd’s study groups, and heard Japanese PM Shinzo Abe speak. Being in proximity to such inspiring people is infectious because it opens up your mind to possibilities you were previously unaware of.
With the conference, I wanted to do something similar,” says Aditya, who will be running for President of the organisation this cycle.
