Written by David Pepper. Find the original text at the Cambridge MBA blog

One of the traditions of the Cambridge MBA is its partnership with Aiducation, an international organisation that awards scholarships to bright and motivated people in Kenya and the Philippines. It launched in 2006 and the Cambridge chapter began in 2009 when a Cambridge Judge MBA student took up the challenge. David, one of the enthusiastic aiducators at Cambridge, kindly shared his experiences with Aiducation.

Each year an individual or individuals are appointed Directors, and for the MBA year 2014-2015, fellow MBA Tony Ngige and myself were awarded this great honour.

I took on the opportunity because I saw it as a fantastic opportunity to do something extremely worthwhile and emphatically different. My work experience to date has been in the corporate sector and thus the opportunity to contribute to the not-for-profit world and run a part of the organisation seemed too good to be true.

Shaylne is pictured with current Cambridge MBA students, Aiducation alumni and school staff.

Communications technology plays a big role in our lives today, and will continue to do so in the future. But How? And to what end? In the 3rd of 4 part series, we reconnect with AiduFellow Rozanne Ocampo from our June blog post to stay abreast technology tools without losing sight of one complementary educative tool – arguably more powerfully relevant and irreplaceable for shaping tomorrow’s leaders than most communication technologies today: Networking.

Aiducation: Rozanne, you participated in the 2013 Temasek Foundation Leadership Enrichment and Regional Networking Programme: what leadership skills did you develop during the exchange Program?

Rozanne: More than any specific leadership skill, I learned how to be a leader of myself. During those five to six months, I had to be responsible for my own self. I had to know my goals and my purpose why I was there and more importantly, to keep the goals and purpose I have set for myself. There was no other person than myself to remind me of the important things I have to look through and accomplish. I had all my time and money under my control that it was easy to just indulge myself with no care about tomorrow. Under such circumstances, I developed a whole new sense of responsibility and focus. Being surrounded with different kinds of amazing people with different principles, background, and goals, I came to understand myself better and I learned how to be honest with myself. I learned how to manage my expectations and frame things properly so that they produce the better effect on me. The leadership camp that we attended as part of the program also taught me the importance of critically forming my own opinion and ideas and learning how to voice them out properly.

Aiducation: Which 2 inspiring persons did you meet and why have you remained in touch with since then?

I met a lot of amazing and brilliant people when I joined the said program but there were 2 persons who really had an impact on me. One is the person who I grew closest to during the program. She is also a Filipino but she and her family is living in Brunei. I don’t know how it happened but we just clicked with each other and we started spending most of our time together. What I find amazing about her is how she can click with virtually anyone. I was inspired with the way she treats people and how she can easily make the people around her feel comfortable with her. Her bubbly, caring, and genuine personality just shines through. It makes people want to open up and share to her. Being an introvert, I was inspired by her openness to new people and new ideas and her courage to dig deeper into these unfamiliar territories. She knew herself well and she didn’t allow herself to be intimidated by others, instead she kept herself open. She inspired me to be more confident of my genuine self and to be more welcoming to both myself and to others. Even after the program, we continued to update each other about each other’s lives every now and then. For me she is a living reminder of how beautiful “genuine and true” is.

Communications technology plays a big role in our lives today, and will continue to do so in the future. But How? And to what end? In the second of 4 part series, Aiducation connects the dots between ancient and modern trends we could harness for social development, particularly increased access to education – our passion at Aiducation.

What do Crowdfunding and an African proverb have in common?

Both turn to using communication (technology) to solve some of society’s most pressing needs, including education.

“It takes a village to raise a child” – African Proverb

The Aiducation Annual Report 2014 was pubished online just a couple of days ago. In this year’s editorial, the CEOs of the talent-raising and scholarship-raising chapters, Dr. Florian Kapitza, Jeremiah Kambi, Solvie Nubla-Lee, and Matthias Meier, give a brief summary of what they think it takes to realize a human’s inherent potential. Acquire a taste for our Annul Report here in our blog and download the full document from our homepage.

There is no “one-size-fits-all-solution”, because people have diverse needs, but two necessary factors are often lacking in developing countries:

1. Access to quality formal Education
2. Access to individual mentorship, role models, and training

At Aiducation, we call this concept “Aid 2 Education 2 Aid” (see figure) and we are implementing it by awarding scholarships in Kenya and the Philippines. Our scholarships ensure that each “AiduFellow” has access to quality formal education and access to mentorship and training. Our non-traditional training includes entrepreneurship workshops and mentoring sessions.

Hot off the press: the Aiducation Annual Report 2014

“Aid 2 Education 2 Aid” Concept

In the Philippines, for every 100 students that enter first grade, only six proceed to secondary school where four will graduate and out of which, only two proceed to university. In a country whose population recently hit the 100 million mark, how is it so that only 2% of the people go on to university? The simple answer really is that while talent is evenly distributed, sadly, opportunities are not.

There are many problems plaguing the Philippine public education system such as the lack of ample classrooms where usually 60 to even 80 to 100 students are crammed in a classroom built for 40; the lack of good teachers as many opt to flock to other countries to seek higher wages and better lives and the lack of textbooks – students have to share textbooks, if their schools are fortunate enough to have gotten hold of any. It will take time and a strong political will to even begin confronting these. Unfortunately, in a country where most of its politicians come from elite families who have never experienced any of the scenarios mentioned, these issues thus continue to remain on the sidelines.

Students answering an exercise during the Aiducation-Pathways mentoring .

And yet, despite all the challenges in public education, the fact remains – there is immense talent in public schools. So why then are they unable to make it to university?