Catch the fresh wave of student leaders

Looking back at my student days, I remember a fairly linear and one-dimensional pursuit: Study hard, get good marks, go to college, get a good job...you get the drift.  Solving problems in society were mostly theoretical discussions over endless cups of chai in the college cafeteria or, at best, participating in a protest march. Life advice from elders at the time also led us in the same direction with the consolation that we would get “plenty of time later” to deal with these “external problems.”

I guess it’s pretty much the same today, isn’t it? Or not!

Look around. Students today are an empowered lot. Studying hard is just one part of their existence. They are actively involved in societal issues - be it on the banning of plastic bags and firecrackers, raising awareness on environment, or helping the disadvantaged. The world is their arena. Students in India raise funds to help those impacted by the earthquake in Japan. Students in Canada raise funds to help build schools in Africa. Students all over the world are collaborating and to rewrite the rules of student life as we knew it.

Within this new student genre, we are witnessing the emergence of leaders in their own right. Young men and women who believe in their power to solve the problems they see around them and then get to work about it – before or after graduating.

Let me give you a couple examples.

Jason Shah was still in high school when he noticed that students from higher income backgrounds consistently outperformed lower income students. He initiated the project I Need a Pencil to empower these underserved students through innovative online resources to help them gain access to higher education. By the time he was in junior year at Harvard, his free lessons in math, reading and writing through the website www.ineedapencil.com were helping thousands of students each month improve their performance on the SAT to get admission in good colleges and universities.

Another example is that of Prashant Gupta, a student at IIT Kanpur. The fact that the Right to Information Act exists in India is a widely known fact. But not too many people actually take advantage of the Act and seek important information from the government. Therein lies the gap between legislation and change. To bridge this, Prashant Gupta set up RTINation. At a nominal charge of just Rs 150, the site enables one to file a Right to Information application online. The tedious processing is done on your behalf and the reply comes directly to you. ‘Be the change’ is the motto of the start-up, which has enabled over 3,000 RTIs.

These young men did not compromise with a problem. Instead, they saw a solution through the freshness of their outlook.  New York based tech entrepreneur and coauthor of the book Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders  Daniel Gulati coins this as The Inexperience advantage. “Being inexperienced means you're not shackled with decades of service in a narrow vertical and the accompanying entrenched biases and relationships...”he states.

According to Ray Williams, leadership coach, believes that the innovative approach of students today is helping them look beyond the depressive job scenario and hiring freezes, to create the next great entrepreneurial generation. In a recent blog in the Financial Post, Williams points to studies that reveal that more 18 to 24-year-olds are starting up businesses faster than their counterparts in the 35 to 44 age range.

More power to the inexperienced I say. As with this inexperience comes the enthusiasm and energy to try something new – an aching need in an increasingly jaded world.