With an “historic $25 million donation,” Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management today (January 20) announced the launch of a one-of-a-kind global initiative to bring world-class business education to 100 million learners around the world by the year 2030. Seventy percent of them will be women...
The goal is to offer an accredited online Global Management and Entrepreneurship Certificate, consisting of five courses in 40 different languages, helping people in undereducated parts of the world gain 21st-century skills to catapult their professional careers.
The goal is ambitious: educate 100 million people around the world by 2030.
Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management is embracing the challenge, launching a large-scale effort to offer a free online certificate program in global management and entrepreneurship with five courses in 40 languages.
The Francis and Dionne Najafi Global Initiative, funded by a $25 million donation from the Phoenix couple, will support the effort, the university announced Thursday.
The hope is that 70% of the 100 million individuals will be women, to help target those who haven’t had the opportunity to go to school and provide for their families...
Schools of management have a critical role to play in supporting communities across the globe that are facing political turmoil.
As refugees ourselves—Rangina emigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021 and Sanjeev from Uganda in 1973—we deeply understand the challenges and uncertainties that so many of our fellow humans face today. We also know firsthand how support from institutions such as schools of management can make a significant difference, not only in the lives of refugees who leave their home countries, but also in the lives of those who remain.
Since its inception in 1946, Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix has been guided by the belief that educating global leaders is critical to creating sustainable and inclusive prosperity and promoting peace worldwide. At the same time, we recognize that many people around the world lack access to formal leadership and management education—largely because the general prosperity that grew from previous industrial revolutions and globalization has been neither sustainable nor inclusive.
Yet there is tremendous opportunity to support people from disadvantaged communities, to help them become entrepreneurs, business managers, government officials, civil society leaders, philanthropists, and educators. That is why management schools must do all they can to teach not only the educated, but also people without access to education, work experience, and other opportunities that many of us take for granted. Such efforts will be key to empowering disenfranchised communities worldwide—and to making the world a better place.