Autorenprofil
What does it feel like to sit in a room with people from 42 countries, all trying to make sense of the same world? I found out last February.
The Harvard College Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) is an conference event based at Harvard University. Its flagship Harvard Conference (HCONF) brings together students, professionals and emerging leaders annually in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Past speakers have included Nobel Prize winners, CEOs of global firms and senior government officials. This year’s theme was Emerging Horizons: Truth at Dawn, Hope at Dusk, exploring how trust and resilience guide communities through polarisation and rapid change. Selection is competitive: a written application, motivation essays, and video interview if application is selected, with delegates drawn from all over the world. Being selected for HCONF 2026, held on 6–8 February, whilst working as a Risk Advisory Consultant at Deloitte in Frankfurt, was one of the highlights of my early career.
Flying from Frankfurt, landing in Boston, and walking onto Harvard’s campus for the first time was surreal. I had to stop and absorb it. Three days there turned out to be more than I had imagined.
Day One opened with the Opening Ceremony, followed by Executive Seminars, intimate sessions of just 12–15 delegates with a senior expert. No slides, no lecture, just a table and a real conversation. That evening, International Night brought delegates together through food, music, and stories from home. Cross-cultural understanding, I was reminded, is not a value statement. It is a practical advantage.
Day Two was the most intensive. Speaker sessions featured Bay Fang, President and CEO of Radio Free Asia and Alex Pascal, Executive Director of the Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard, sharp perspectives on information integrity and digital governance, directly relevant to the risk advisory work I do. Afternoon workshops in journalism and public speaking challenged how I communicate complex ideas, a skill Frankfurt School’s case-based teaching had already sharpened, now tested in a very different setting. The day closed with the Impact Challenge: teams tackling real-world problems under pressure, presentations capped at five minutes. As anyone in consulting knows, that is the hardest format of all.
Day Three brought speaker sessions with Nila Ibrahimi, President of HerStory and Dr K. David Harrison, Professor of Linguistics at Swarthmore College, perseverance and quiet optimism carried into the final day. Teams presented their Impact Challenge solutions, working on cases from L’Oréal and Red Bull. The Closing Ceremony featured a panel from Harvard Kennedy School, Boston University, Boston College and Harvard Law School, before closing remarks from Ned Price, Interim Co-Director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard. A former intelligence officer and diplomat under the Obama and Biden administrations, his reflections on truth in public life were a fitting end: the conference theme was never abstract. It was something people had built careers around.
Whenever I had a free moment, I made my way to the campus cafeteria and that is where I was most struck. I would often grab a coffee and try to engage with Harvard Business School MBA students, many of whom were discussing the companies they were building, the ideas they were stress-testing, and the problems they had committed their careers to solving. It was not performative. It was simply the air that place breathes.
For someone who grew up in a small village in Assam with limited access to spaces like these, those conversations hit differently. I was not intimidated by the minds around me, I was energised by them. The gap between where you start and where you can go is largely a function of the rooms you choose to put yourself in.
The Frankfurt School foundation travels well. As an MSc in Management alumnus, the analytical rigour, international outlook and emphasis on connecting theory to practice were exactly the skills I drew on across those three days. I was not the loudest voice in the room. But I was a prepared one.
If you are considering applying to such international dailogue, please do it. The process alone will sharpen how you tell your own story. And if you are selected, show up fully.
Frankfurt School gGmbH
Adickesallee 32-34
60322 Frankfurt am Main
