Ms Ameena Hassan, lecturer Department of Humanities, CIIT Islamabad Campus, was selected to participate in the International Visitor Project for Pakistan titled Education, Employability, and Entrepreneurship from August 17 – September 4, 2015. The participants for this program are selected after rigorous scrutiny by the US Department of State office in Washington DC.  

The US Department of State had outlined specific professional objectives for the project. The major aim was to enable educators, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs to identify the meeting point between education and entrepreneurship by exploring education-to-employment strategies employed in US Universities and businesses.

The three week period involved extensive travelling to enable the participants to get a feel of how systems work in the US and also to get involved in cultural exchange with the Americans. The group landed in Washington DC to be welcomed by the hosts and meet with successful Pakistani entrepreneurs based in various parts of the US. The group also travelled to Boston; Helena, Montana; Bozeman; Kansas City and the last stop was New York.

 A great highlight of the program were the student immersion programs where they work in a professional culture, solving real life problems, using industry standard tools and are mentored by actual employers, while receiving high school/college credit for it. Such programs increase employability and students learn to love what they do, and do what they love. The examples of such programs were seen in Junior Achievement Finance Park, Virginia; Blue Valley CAPS High School, Kansas City; Northeastern University cooperative education program, Boston; MIT, Sloan Business School, Boston; Worcester Technical High School, Massachusetts; and Clark University LEEP Center, Worcester. It is interesting to note that Worcester Technical High School had the honor of having President Obama speak at their commencement ceremony in June 2014.  

The group also had the honor of meeting with aspiring entrepreneurs in Kansas City Start up Village. These young business men are involved in civic engagement through innovation and see how small and medium-size businesses apply principles of social entrepreneurship to solve community and national issues.  On the cultural side, the group was given the chance to speak at a conference on Education and Entrepreneurship at Carroll College in Helena, Montana. A reception was held by Global Ties, a private organization which was overseeing the group’s stay in Kansas City. The participants were guests of honor at this reception and had a chance to speak to and mingle with the other guests in an informal way.  The group was also taken for a one day visit to Yellow Stone National Park. The Park is a nearly 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. Mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too.

 The program ended with an extensive evaluation and feedback session which culminated on a certificate distribution ceremony in New York.

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