Fellows and Friends Celebrate 2016–2017 Commencement

2016–2017 BU Humphrey Fellows with Keynote Speaker Agnes Igoye (missing: Mr. Zamir Khan of Pakistan)

On Thursday, May 4th, Questrom School of Business Dean Kenneth W. Freeman and the HHHP administrative team welcomed faculty advisors, professional affiliates, host families, and other friends and supporters of the Program to the Questrom School of Business in celebration of the 2016–2017 Fellows’ successful completion of the Fellowship year at BU.

Screen Shot 2017-05-08 at 12.09.08 PMThe program also featured videotaped congratulations by former President Jimmy Carter.

BU is the only university to have continually hosted Humphrey Fellows since the Program’s inception in 1978, and this graduation marked a major milestone in our program’s history: with the graduation of this year’s ten Fellows, our global alumni network now exceeds 500 members.

Keynote Speaker Edward Kapili

The 2016–2017 Class Speaker was Mr. Edward Kapili of Zambia. Mr. Kapili is a manager at the Bank of Zambia who spent his Fellowship Year building his banking and finance expertise with an emphasis on financial markets and instruments. He completed a Professional Affiliation at Boston University’s Center for Finance, Law & Policy where he, along with four other members of the 2016–2017 cohort, contributed to a white paper on international remittances that will be delivered at the United Nations this fall. He is currently engaged in a second Professional Affiliation in the Fiscal Affairs and Monetary and Capital Markets departments at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. Upon his return to Zambia, he will tackle issues related to income inequality and financial exclusion based on age and gender. 

Mr. Kapili delivered a series of heartfelt reflections on behalf of the entire cohort, which may be accessed here.

 

Keynote Speaker Agnes Igoye
Keynote Speaker Agnes Igoye

The keynote speaker was Ms. Agnes Igoye of Uganda. Ms. Igoye is a 2010–2011 HHHP alumna of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. She is currently a Mason Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and Uganda’s Deputy National Coordinator of Prevention of Trafficking in Persons and the Training Manager at the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control. She is a global anti-human trafficking activist and leader, having advised organizations such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Organization for Migration and spoken at multiple international conferences and universities. In 2015, she was named one of the 100 most influential people in Africa by New African magazine. Other awards include the University of Minnesota’s Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals and the Inspirational Woman of Uganda Award, and she was recently selected as one of 50 emerging Global Women leaders by the Women in Public Service Project. In 2016, she was featured in The Atlantic magazine.

Ms. Igoye spoke movingly to the Fellows on the theme of “making choices.” Her speech may be accessed here. We were also honored to welcome several of Ms. Igoye’s colleagues at Harvard: Kwame Rugunda, Allen Asiimwe and Sheila Kyarisima of Uganda and Gautum Gandhi of the U.S.

Several of the Fellows’ family members and friends attended the ceremony. Pakaiphone Syphoxay’ husband and daughter attended, along with her friend Priya Adhisesha Redd of India, a current Humphrey Fellow at Emory University. Also in attendance were Ms. Josiane Sylvie Mbakop Noukeu’s sister Nya Micheline, Ms. Sevgim Çisel Çelik Keskin’s parents Yalçın Çelik and Seyhan Çelik and her husband Mehmet Serhat Keskinand, Latu Sera Kaukilakeba’s husband Soni, and friends of Valeria Rios Molina and Beatriz Gonzalez. 

Everyone missed Mr. Zamir Khan of Pakistan, one of the members of this year’s cohort, who unfortunately had to return to Pakistan early because of work responsibilities. Mr. Khan is Senior Joint Director of the Payment Systems Department at the State Bank of Pakistan.

Special thanks to longtime host family member Don Murray for his wonderful photography during the event. Don’s photos may be viewed here.

 

 

View all posts