Aluva girl represents India at leadership meet.

KOCHI: Ashwathy Venugopal, hailing from Aluva, has the privilege of joining 27 young leaders from across the globe, representing their countries, at the World Youth Leadership Conference at Atlanta in USA.

The youth leaders in attendance were given a platform to introduce their countries through presentations, discuss the opportunities and challenges of youth and brainstorm on the way forward. They were given specialised leadership development courses at Georgia Tech University and thus had a chance to connect with global thought leaders.

“The programme covered a range of themes including leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. We were taken on tours and given training at CNN’s world headquarters, Coca-Cola headquarters and AT&T Drive Studio. We interacted with Martin Luther King III and Yolanda King and initiated a discussion around, in his own words, ‘What kind of world the youth wants to live in and what they are ready to give up to get there,” said Ashwathy on her experience, in a telephonic talk from US. The nine-day conference arranged by The Kectil Programme, USA, which started on July 19, concluded on Saturday.

Ashwathy is an MBA first rank holder from Cochin University of Science and Technology and an engineering graduate from Model Engin-eering College.

She was employed in managerial role with Amazon.com. She had also worked for a consultancy project on woman entrepreneurship and micro financing with Kudumbashree, Ernakulam.

Currently she is working on her start-up Mbrace Wear.

It is a product-based venture developing smart wearables for posture correction and maintenance.

The Kectil Programme is a transformational leadership programme for talented youth from developing countries. It is a year-long web-based leadership programme, on completion of which exceptional participants are selected to the fully funded World Youth Leadership Conference in USA. At the end of the programme, they become part of an alumni network with other similarly talented and passionate youth from across the globe. They will support, nurture, teach and learn from each other as they mature, and share the goal to make a positive difference in their lives, the lives of their colleagues and lives of those in their communities and countries.

This year 700 participants were part of the program and amongst them 27 exceptional youths were selected as World Youth Leaders for the conference and Ashwathy is one of them.  The Kectil Program is hosted by The Malmar Knowles Family Foundation (MKFF) and founded by Sherry Knowles.