Harvard expert at Pathfinder seminar on how China, India reshape their futures

The Pathfinder Foundation is organising the second series of seminars, beginning with ‘Billions of Entrepreneurs; How China and India are Reshaping their Futures and Yours’. The seminar, organised in collaboration with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce using video conference facility of the American Centre, is scheduled for 22 May from 6.3p.m. to 8:30p.m.  

The speaker from Harvard University on the subject will be Prof. Tarun Khanna, who has authored many publications including a book on the same subject which has been translated into several languages.  Prof. Khanna is the Director of the Harvard University South Asia Initiative, and the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, where he has studied and worked with multinational and indigenous companies and investors in emerging markets worldwide.

Prof. Khanna, serves on the boards of the global power company, AES Corporation, and India’s largest microfinance firm, SKS Microfinance, and on the advisory board of the Tata Opportunities Fund, along with several others in the financial services, energy, automotive, and life sciences sectors, and actively invests in and mentors start-ups in Asia.

In 2007, he was nominated to be a Young Global Leader (under 40) by the World Economic Forum.

The Harvard University – Pathfinder Foundation (PF) Leadership Dialogue program is intended to expose Sri Lankan academics, public officials, businessmen, and civil society to high quality thinking among Harvard academics.  

The first series of six seminars was held from October 2010 to April 2011. The themes discussed had resonance for assisting in the formulation of a reform agenda for post – conflict Sri Lanka. They addressed the twin issues of consolidating peace through reconciliation and developing a reform agenda for accelerating development in the context of a rapidly changing global economic landscape. Topics discussed included: The Origins of the International Financial Crisis and its Influence on the Future of Globalisation; Leadership, Governance, and Conflict in the Developing World, in Comparative Perspective; Small Countries in a Time of Dramatic Global Change: What can Greece teach us? and Ethnic Diversity and the Structure of Government. Speakers of the calibre of Prof. Jeffry Frieden, Prof. Ashutosh Varshney, Prof. Hugh O’Doherty and Prof. Robert Rotberg were among the key speakers from Harvard. Participants will be registered on a first come first serve basis. Please register through calling 112372895 or e-mailing [email protected]