Texas Global Welcomes Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Fellows
- Sep 27, 2018
- Fiona Mazurenko
Texas Global is pleased to welcome its third group of participants as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI) Professional Fellows Program. The 14 young business and social entrepreneurs from Latin America and the Caribbean have been placed with local businesses, nonprofits and similar entities to advance their entrepreneurial ideas and gather best practices to bring back to their home countries.
The 2018 YLAI fellows at UT represent 12 countries and work in engineering, software development, fashion, education, media, community development and environmental conservation. They arrived on September 22 and will be in Austin for four weeks to further develop their business plans by engaging in skills-building workshops.
The fellows will also learn from U.S. counterparts by participating in day-to-day operations at their host organizations and collaborating on a joint project. Through the program, the fellows will develop stronger ties with their peers from across Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as with their U.S. fellowship hosts.
As part of the program, fellowship hosts from 20 cities around the U.S. will be selected for a reciprocal exchange program to travel to the region in spring 2019 and implement a project that can benefit the community. They will also share best practices and support the progress of the fellows’ action plans and participate in speaking events and trainings.
Texas Global is proud to work with Meridian International Center, a premier nonprofit global leadership organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., on this program.
For further information, please contact the program team at ylai@austin.utexas.edu. For press inquiries, contact ECA-Press@state.gov.
Learn more about YLAI and the YLAI program at UT.
