Eisenhower Fellowships
2025 Annual James and Carol Hovey Impact Award Dinner
and Pin Ceremony
November 12, 2025
Philadelphia
Eisenhower Fellowships welcomed Fellows and friends from around the world to Philadelphia on November 12 for an inspiring celebration of our Fellows’ global impact and the closing ceremony of the 2025 South East Asia and Zhi-Xing China Programs.
2025 Hovey Award
The annual Hovey Award highlights outstanding project work by an Eisenhower Fellow or group of Fellows that helps people live better lives by generating a positive impact within their professional fields or communities that improves people’s lives at the local, national or international level.
Trustee James Hovey presented physician Magaly Blas (Peru 2018), founder and director of the Mamás del Río (Mothers of the River) program, and former corporate executive Shridhar Venkat (India 2014), chief executive officer of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the 2025 Hovey Award for their work to provide maternal health care in the Amazon River Basin and provide meals to impoverished schoolchildren in India, respectively.
In Peru, Magaly Blas founded and directs Mamás del Río, an innovative program she created to improve maternal and child health in remote Amazonian areas, empowering community and traditional birth attendants using mobile technology, safe birth kits and culturally grounded health education. After her Eisenhower fellowship in 2014, she expanded the program across the border to Colombia, dramatically improving maternal and child health outcomes in remote areas in both countries.
In India, Shridhar Venkat leads the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world’s largest nongovernmental school lunch and breakfast program. Since its inception in 2000 with the modest goal of serving 1,500 children across five government schools in the Indian state of Bengaluru, Akshaya Patra has grown into a pioneering social impact organization, operating 78 state-of-the-art kitchens that provide more than 2.35 million midday meals and one million morning nutrition servings each day.
In India, Shridhar Venkat leads the Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world’s largest nongovernmental school lunch and breakfast program. Since its inception in 2000 with the modest goal of serving 1,500 children across five government schools in the Indian state of Bengaluru, Akshaya Patra has grown into a pioneering social impact organization, operating 78 state-of-the-art kitchens that provide more than 2.35 million midday meals and one million morning nutrition servings each day.
2025 South East Asia Program
Eisenhower Fellowships celebrated the conclusion of the 2025 South East Asia Program that brought 13 exceptional mid-career leaders from diverse professional fields to the United States to meet with top experts in their fields for nearly six weeks.
The Fellows selected for the program were from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. These dynamic leaders drive change in fields ranging from public policy and artificial intelligence to music, medicine and climate innovation.
They brought with them to the U.S. an impressive array of impactful initiatives, including a digital health platform for dementia caregivers, an AI ethics curriculum for public servants, a zero-carbon innovation hub and plans for a new major international arts festival in Hanoi.
The South East Asia Fellows are developing pioneering approaches to advance their work in their individual countries and across their region. Each embodies EF’s mission to promote peace, prosperity and justice through international understanding and collaboration.
Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees, and EF President George de Lama presented the 2025 South East Fellows with their pins and certificates to mark the end of their fellowship travels and immersion into the influential EF global network of leaders.
The South East Asia Fellows are developing pioneering approaches to advance their work in their individual countries and across their region. Each embodies EF’s mission to promote peace, prosperity and justice through international understanding and collaboration.
Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees, and EF President George de Lama presented the 2025 South East Fellows with their pins and certificates to mark the end of their fellowship travels and immersion into the influential EF global network of leaders.
2025 Zhi-Xing Program
Receiving their pins and certificates to mark the formal end of their fellowships were the 2025 Eisenhower Zhi-Xing China Fellows. Launched in 2015, the Zhi-Xing program builds on Eisenhower Fellowships’ nearly three decades of professional exchange programs with China. Ascendant leaders from across the U.S enjoyed four weeks of intensive cultural immersion starting in Beijing and ending in Shanghai, with individualized programming in other cities and towns across mainland China.
The nine American Fellows included leaders in non-profit education and housing programs, agricultural research, cross-cultural learning opportunities, veterans’ affairs, philanthropy, city planning and strategies to reduce energy consumption.
Each of the Zhi-Xing Fellows received their certificates and pins from former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees, and EF President George de Lama, marking their lifelong entry into the EF global network of Fellows around the world.
