The Kectil Program held its July 2019 Global Youth Leadership Conference on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Georgia Tech, a public research university founded in 1885, is a center for STEM education and innovation — engineering, computing, sciences, business, design, and liberal arts. At the time of that gathering it was widely ranked among the leading public universities in the United States, with undergraduate engineering programs among the strongest in the country.
Thirty-one youth leaders from fifteen countries took part: Colombia, Egypt, Guyana, India, Israel, Kenya, Lesotho, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saint Lucia, South Africa, Uganda, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. Founder and Executive Director Sherry M. Knowles moderated intensive leadership sessions. Martin Luther King III, then a Kectil advisory board member, joined with his daughter Yolanda King for personal discussions with the youth. Dr. Alison Montgomery spoke on raising funds for community work. Dr. George Luber, then chief of the Climate and Health Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, presented on climate and disease. Colleagues toured the AT&T Drive Studio and Coca-Cola’s world headquarters.
The heart of the week was the country presentations. Each participant taught the others their geography, history, culture, demographics, and political and social environment — and what it is like to grow up there, the youth challenges, and how to identify transformational leaders at home.
A critical aim was a network that would last after the flights home: the Kectil Generation, colleagues who support and draw from each other as they mature. Bonding time and open discussion were part of the design, not extras. Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center, founded in 1980, was already known as one of the oldest technology incubators in the United States — a fitting backdrop for a week about innovation in service of community.