Being a Community Solutions Program Fellow

Diversity: Best place to learn and share

It was a wonderful opportunity to be selected as a fellow for the Community Solutions Program 2016. The fellowship was organized by International Research and Exchange Board and the United States Department of State. It was a joyous moment to be representing Nepal and become one of the 93 fellows from 35 different countries.

About the Fellowship

The fellowship is a professional development program for global community leaders working in issues of transparency and accountability, tolerance and conflict resolution, environmental issues, and women and gender issues. In this fellowship, we participated in a four month of practicum with a U.S. based non-profit organization or government agency; a structured virtual learning and networking via the Online Community Leadership Institute; and the design and implementation of follow-on projects in our home countries. Every component of the fellowship focuses at sharpening the leadership skills of individual fellows who have been involved in solving community problems.

Like other fellows, I was selected based on my involvement in enhancing accountability of public institutions of Nepal and open data innovations at YoungInnovations.

Online Leadership Courses and networking with other fellow

As soon as I was selected, my online leadership course in Community Leadership Institute started a month before my placement in Governance Laboratory (GovLab), New York. I learned various leadership approaches under the close mentoring of Dr. Deidre Combs. We could use the same online platform to connect with other fellows to know each other and exchange our ideas.

Practicum: When a YIPlite went to become a GovLabber

For four months starting from August 2016, I got the opportunity to work at Governance Laboratory (GovLab), an affiliate of the New York University, Tandon School of Engineering. The organization works to ensure an increased availability and use of data, new ways to leverage the capacity, intelligence, and expertise of people in the problem solving process, combined with new advances in technology and science that can transform governance. It was a heterogeneous work place filled with people from different parts of the world.

For me, it was entirely a different exposure to work in a new place. At first, I had a mixed feelings of nervousness and excitement. But they welcomed me into their space and always made me feel comfortable. My supervisor helped me in every steps of my professional development. Also, I am very thankful to my community mentor who helped me in learning to survive in New York city.

As a Program Affiliate, I worked in two ongoing projects namely: Open Data for Developing Economics and Data Collaboratives. Under these projects, I developed a framework for research, assisted in project development, interviewed people and participated in different meetings and forums. It was great to see my practicum perfectly matched my current area of involvement at YoungInnovations. I also got an opportunity to showcase the Earthquake Response: Transparency Portal and talk about our other initiatives to ensure the trace-ability of funds for victims of the earthquake.

Office Setup was quite familiar

My Learning from fellowship

1. There are innovative approaches to address issues using open data tools. It was very interesting to see the power of crowd-sourcing in helping to fight against zika virus and Dengue infections in Pakistan, Brazil and Argentina, Colombia and Panama.
2. I heard the term ‘Crowdlaw’ for the first time. I met the coordinator of the Hackers of Brazilian Parliament and learnt about their initiative which acts as a communication channel between people and the parliamentarians.
3. Use of technology to help breathe better was one of the most interesting concept I learnt about. I met the CEO of Plume Labs whose team have been using open data to map the quality of air in major cities of the world.
4. Becoming more organized while working was another lesson that I learnt — allocating time to specific works and follow it accordingly, prioritize between works and summarizing the whole day’s work at the end of the day.

Follow-on: Smart Cleanup Kathmandu

As a part of the fellowship program, I will launch a smart crowd-sourcing initiative in Kathmandu to help authorities/stakeholders take affirmative actions in managing urban wastes. Such initiative has been successful in other countries where people directly take part in sensitizing the government. With the project, I hope to bring some changes in waste management of Kathmandu.

Conclusion

It has been a productive five months of fellowship where I got to widen my thinking horizon, learn from people from different part of the world, tell stories and bring back a lot of experiences that serves me throughout my life.