Each year ‘University for a Night’ brings together leaders from around the world from different sectors of society to share ideas and inspiration about systemic solutions to poverty and other complex problems and to award the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award.
The event was held in Europe for the first time on October 22 in London and featured 155 participants. The event was sponsored by the Hashoo Foundation, Kim-Samuel Johnson, and Shell. Past recipients of the award include Bill Clinton, Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates and William H Gates Sr, Nelson Mandela and Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan.
This year participants joined Synergos’ Founder and Chair Peggy Dulany in honouring His Highness the Agha Khan, founder and chairman of the Agha Khan Development Network (AKDN), with the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award. Mr Rockefeller in a letter to the Agha Khan, wrote, “Through the Agha Khan Development Network, you have leveraged the social conscience of Islam in ways that benefit people of all faiths, promoting tolerance, pluralism and broad-based development.”
In acknowledging the award, His Highness spoke about the importance of civil society in development. “As I have done my work over the past decades, I have concluded that one of the most important forces in development is civil society,” he explained. “If you think about the countries around the world which have had fragile governments but still made progress, there are umpteen examples of countries which have made progress because they have had a strong civil society.”
Hashoo Foundation Founder Sadruddin Hashwani, Hashoo Foundation Chair Sarah Hashwani, and Executive Director Hashoo Foundation USA Cristal Montañéz Baylor, were among the guests.
The Hashoo Foundation is a non-profit organization which was set up in 1988. The foundation’s vision is to help create an ethical and inclusive society in which people live with dignity and have power over their own lives. It has numerous initiatives across Pakistan, the US and in UK. The foundation’s projects focus on economic development, education, skills development and humanitarian assistance.