Eisenhower Fellows have been busy writing and posting their reflections, experiences and suggestions in traditional and social media outlets around the world.
Maria Sarungi-Tsehai (Tanzania ’16) Director, Compass Communications
Nuru Mugambi (Kenya ’16) Director, Kenya Bankers Association
Lindelwa Farisani (South Africa ’16) Director, Equity Sales, UBS Investment Bank
Fellows from Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa came together to write this summary: African Governments Are Stepping Up to Curb COVID Fallout. Available here.
Cong Phan, (Vietnam ’15)
Founder/CEO, Unibrands Corporation
The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada presented its 6th online Asia Leaders Speaker Series, with a webinar entitled Vietnam’s Post-Pandemic Economic Acceleration, featuring Dr. Cong Phan, Chairman of UniBrands Corporation, Saigon Foods and Wakamono Group. Watch the webinar here.
Swati Sharma (India ’17)
Mason Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School
Covid-19’s Success is our Collective Failure
Read her piece here.
Deb Gordon (USA ’13)
Health Innovators Fellow, Aspen Institute
Deb Gordon has been busy writing about the Covid pandemic in a number of publications. Read her prolific work here.
12 Ways to Optimize Your Health Insurance HealthyWomen, April 13, 2020
How to Access Telehealth for COVID-19 and Beyond MoneyGeek, May 11, 2020
Pricing Healthcare Public Health Post, May 7, 2020
How to Find Health Care If You Lose Your Job Due to the Coronavirus Crisis MoneyGeek, May 2, 2020
When It Comes to Your Health Care, You’re Already the Expert HealthyWomen, April 13, 2020
What to Do If You Lose Your Health Insurance During the Coronavirus Crisis Kiplinger, March 23, 2020
The Health-Care Consumer’s Survival Guide to Coronavirus Healthy Women, March 23, 2020
Coronavirus Health Care Costs: 4 Big Questions about Paying for COVID-19 Care MoneyGeek, March 13, 2020
Saliya Pieris (Siri Lanka ’12)
President’s Counsel, Law Chambers
Bhavani Fonseka (Sri Lanka’15)
Senior Researcher, Centre for Policy Alternatives
Saliya Pieris and Bhavani Fonseka engaged in a discussion of Covid-19 legal issues with four lawyers in Sri Lanka. Sponsored by the Westminster Foundation, the discussion explored impacts, inequalities and solutions. Watch a video of it here.
Adel Boseli (Qatar ‘17), Investor in Residence, Legatum Center and CEO of VFlock
Dina Sherif (Egypt ‘15), Executive Director, Legatum Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Will Covid-19 Change Investor Behavior? The Hope we Hold on to
Adel Boseli and Dina Sherif address the impact of Covid-19 on investor behavior. Read their piece here.
Jamil Ahmed (Bangladesh ’12)
Founder and Executive Director of the Journalism Training and Research Institute
Jamil Ahmed shared his views on the “Role of Journalism and Media During Corona Situation.”
Watch the video here.
Carol Musyoka (Kenya ’10)
Founder and Director, Carol Musyoka Consulting
Having Healthy Outlook amid Devastating Disease
Carol Musyoka writes that we all have to take the long view about the Covid pandemic. “We will have to move from the thinking that this is a pandemic to adjusting to the reality that this situation will be endemic in the short to medium term. The much hackneyed “new normal”. We can’t complain forever. The bullish folks registering new businesses every week have a healthy outlook for the future. I think I’m going to join them!” she writes in Business Daily Africa. Read more here.
Marcelo Knobel (Brazil ’07)
Rector, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Unicamp
Universities have a vital role in fighting coronavirus
Humanity is experiencing a moment of great uncertainty. This is not the first time a pandemic has threatened the lives of millions of people. However, the speed with which governments and scientists are reacting to events is unprecedented, says Marcelo Knobel. Read more in the University World News.
Eisenhower Fellows in Europe
In Europe, Eisenhower Fellows from various countries banded together to write and send a joint appeal to leaders of the European Union. Read their letter and the responses they received from the Office of Ursula Von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and from David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament, here.
John Della Volpe (USA ’08)
Polling Director at RealClear Opinions Research
Key conclusions from a new original poll on voters’ attitudes toward life, work and politics during the coronavirus pandemic. Watch the video on Real Clear Politics here
Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook (USA ’17)
Founding Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Executive Director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Crisis is the time for a radical and drastic creativity in governance
Europeans have started to realise what it means to have an absence of American leadership on the international stage. The “opportunity” that this crisis brings is the emergence of different kinds of leaders. Read the full article in EURACTIV Slovakia.
Sreenivasan Jain (India ’00)
Managing Editor, New Dehli Television
Sreenivasan Jain is interviewing migrant workers and slum dwellers to expose the suffering of these people under the Covid -19 lockdown, often in physical danger as he does this work. Learn more here.
Daniel Gallant (USA ’16)
Executive Director, Nuyorican Poets Cafe
It shouldn’t be this hard for small businesses to get help
The pandemic has been a nightmare for most small businesses and nonprofits. But despite the vital economic role played by small businesses across the U.S. and the widespread bipartisan support for aid efforts, relief remains out of reach for thousands of us, Daniel Gallant writes.
Read the full article in the New York Daily News
Michael Horn (USA ’14)
Chief Strategy Officer, The Entangled Group
Eisenhower Fellow Michael Horn is working with author and educator Diane Tavenner to launch a new, limited-run podcast series called Class Disrupted today in partnership with The 74 Million. The podcast seeks to answer parents’ questions about K-12 school during these challenging times. Michael is a noted educator and author of Choosing College. Tavenner is the mom of a high school senior, co-founder of Summit Public Schools, a network of schools on the West Coast; and the author of Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life.
Mohamed Abdel-Kader (USA ’20)
Executive Director, Stevens Initiative at the Aspen Institute
Harnessing Technology for Global Education
Mohamed Abdel-Kader discusses the benefits of college virtual exchange programs. “While fears about traveling abroad or interacting with others, whether within a neighborhood or across the world, may continue for many months, global education experiences are still possible and still important.”
Read more in Inside Higher Ed
Kristen Hess (USA ’16)
President/CEO, HH Architecture
Corona virus diaries
Read more and watch here in the News & Observer
Sherif Kamal (Egypt ’05)
Dean, School of Business
American University in Cairo
The Nile View
Being locked-in at home for the past 40+ days for different reasons, starting with the bad weather of March 12th, followed by the change of The American University in Cairo’s spring break dates to navigate the disruption caused by the coronavirus, and ending with the #StayHome #StaySafe #StayHealthy approach to limit the spread of the pandemic; I spent long hours working from home capitalizing on all possible technological tools and applications available, while being privileged with an exceptional Nile view.
Read more here
Stuart Brotman (USA ’00)
Endowed Professor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Three thought pieces about the Covid crisis:
Thinking about digital privacy protection in pandemic times
Viewpoint: Privacy, cybersecurity support essential for small businesses during coronavirus pandemic
How digital privacy protection can become compatible with Covid-19 location data tracking
Hamdan Majeed (Malaysia ’12)
Executive Director
Think City
The Marathon Fight. Preserving Lives and Livelihoods
A guide on the long-term effects of the virus
Harsha da Silva (Sri Lanka ’11)
Non Cabinet Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution
Former State Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs
More than a million can lose jobs as Covid-19 ravages the economy.
Read the full article from Economy Next
Across the United States, Eisenhower USA Fellows combined to write this op-ed piece.
Sudirman Nasir (Indonesia ’19)
Senior Lecturer, Hasanuddin University, Faculty of Public Health
Indonesia’s poor can’t even afford to wash hands.
The pandemic has brought us serious lessons about the importance of policies to decrease inequality in Indonesia. Investment in improving basic needs such as access to clean water as well as decent and secure jobs will enable us to reduce health problems and improve people’s quality of life.”
Read the full article from The Jakarta Post.
Without major intervention, Indonesia could have 71,000 Covid-19 cases by April’s end.
Transmission of Covid-19 in Indonesia, a country with more than a quarter-billion people, may increase exponentially if the government makes no immediate effort to reduce the spread.
Read the full article in The Conversation.
Deb Gordon (USA ’13)
Health Innovators Fellow, Aspen Institute
Before coronavirus, health insurers were unpopular. They should seize chance to change.
Health care providers need to demonstrate both stylistic and substantive leadership during the coronavirus. Read the full article in USA Today
Richard Read (USA ’97)
Seattle Bureau Chief, Los Angeles Times
A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have Covid-19 and two are dead.
With the coronavirus quickly spreading in Washington state in early March, leaders of the Skagit Valley Chorale debated whether to go ahead with weekly rehearsal. Read the full article in the LA Times.
Eliane Fersan (Lebanon ’15)
Director of the Initiative on Immigrants and Global Migration, University of Southern California
Trump’s Xenophobia Will Exacerbate Crisis
Trump has repeatedly chosen opportunism over public health, but crises should not be used for promoting restrictionist policies against immigrants. Read the full article in The Progressive.
The opinions expressed here are the personal views of the authors and not necessarily those of Eisenhower Fellowships.