Last week, at 11:30 am EST on Monday, February 12th, my cell phone rang with a call from a California number. "Hi Aziz - this is John Hennessy calling. Is this a good time to speak?" - the voice cordially asked. Hennessy, who was recently named non-executive Chairman of Alphabet, Inc., is the architect of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program and Stanford University's 10th President who retired in 2016. Launched with a $450 million gift from the Nike co-founder Phil Knight (MBA'62), Knight-Hennessy has become the largest scholarship program in the world with an endowment of $750 million. Providing full funding to graduate students, its stated goal is to "develop a community of future global leaders to address complex challenges through collaboration and innovation." I was privileged to join the inaugural cohort of Knight-Hennessy Scholars that includes 49 students from 20 countries selected from over 3600 candidates globally.

The program's application was by far the most difficult and creative one that I have ever encountered in admissions processes. Candidates were required to submit two separate applications - one for a graduate program of choice at Stanford, and the other for the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program. The essay questions pointed to deep self-reflection on how our past experiences have influenced where we are at now, and where we plan to be in the future. For guidance, we were referred to Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement speech at Stanford, where he shared three stories that shaped his life of going from an adopted child, to a college drop-out, and a founder of one of the world's most successful companies. "You can't connect the dots looking forward - you can only connect them looking backwards," Jobs said in that speech. To help us connect the dots in our lives, we were directed to "Designing Your Life" project run by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Prototyped into what has become one of the most popular classes at Stanford, Burnett and Evans' main idea is applying design thinking to converting passion into reality in our lives. I will spare you a dose of motivation to learn more about their concepts and stop before diving too much into them! All in all, I had finally submitted my applications to Stanford Graduate School of Business for the MBA program, and to the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program, by the end of September 2017.

In December, while finishing an assignment at an airport gate prior to departing to Abu Dhabi for a research trip, I found out about being admitted into the GSB's MBA program after a congratulatory call from a member of the admissions team. A dream-come-true, I had previously viewed applying to the GSB as a long-shot quest. At the end of the day, I was a 20-year-old seeking admission into the world's most selective business school that has produced global pioneers in the world of business for several decades. I didn't have fancy companies, or hyper-competitive industries, to boast on my resume. What I did have, however, was a passion for attaining a goal that has defined the trajectory of my life, and a demonstrated effort to implement it.

I come from Tajikistan, a country in Central Asia that remains the poorest among former Soviet republics. About a third of the economy is derived from remittances that millions of Tajikistani migrants send back home through labor in foreign countries, primarily Russia. The root of systemic problems in the country lies in the failure of governance and lack of public policy reform. But what could I do to contribute my part to development of the country? I was not a politician or an activist. I was, on the other hand, privileged to have completed high school and undergraduate studies in the United States. Participating in Model UN had allowed me to develop a crucial skill that is systematically deficient in Tajikistan's educational landscape - critical thinking.

A basic, but core skill, critical thinking nurtures analytical capabilities that ultimately lead to challenging of the status quo. Upon graduation from New York University, I decided to launch TajRupt - a platform for extracurricular activism in Tajikistan with the long-term goal of fostering a youth-led civil society. My hope was for TajRupt to educate the youth to become civic-minded citizens who would be the agents of change and lead grassroots efforts in their communities. Designed to disrupt institutional barriers, TajRupt became the first NGO from Central Asia to receive funding from the European Endowment for Democracy. Today, we operate an Extracurricular Resource Center inside Tajikistan that provides after-school activities to hundreds of local youth through a curriculum that we designed with a focus on gender equality, debate, media freedom, and innovation. Our next goal is digitizing access to our curriculum so as to expand impact to students in rural areas of the country, as well as other countries in the Central Asian region.

The road to transforming TajRupt from idea to reality was in no way easy - it was even risky considering Tajikistan's context. Spending half a year back home launching the organization last year was the most challenging, yet rewarding experience of my life. The skills that I had gained prior from brief employment in consulting and at United Nations Population Fund in New York were no match to adaptive leadership and social entrepreneurship abilities that I learned in the process of launching an NGO. Since coming to Harvard Kennedy School to pursue master's in public policy last August, I have made it a priority to keep in touch with the staff and students at TajRupt almost daily. 11 PM (9 AM in Tajikistan) Skype calls are a routine for me, and allow me to stay connected to the people who inspire me about the future of my homeland.

A few days after learning about my admission to GSB, I received an invitation from Knight-Hennessy to participate in the program's Immersion Weekend among 103 finalists. During the weekend that took place last month, I met some of the most accomplished and inspiring individuals - from a medical researcher working on fighting cancer, to a Rhodes Scholar researching nuclear deterrence and public opinion, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur. Throughout the weekend, we got a glimpse of what it means to be a graduate student at Stanford. In a series of mini-lectures, we heard from Professor Raj Chetty, whose research on economic mobility is revolutionizing the debate around income inequality in the United States, and Professor Manu Prakash, whose lab is world-renown center that makes vital healthcare services accessible to the most underprivileged populations. We also visited the d.school - a place at the frontier of design thinking and innovation. While reflecting on these unique experiences on the plane back to Boston, I could only imagine what a privilege, yet a responsibility serving as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar would be.

Today, that thought is a reality - one that is both humbling and motivating. As I plan to complete my concurrent-degree MBA/MPP studies at Stanford and Harvard over the next two years, I am driven to continue learning and contributing. My past experiences have allowed me to appreciate the value of entrepreneurship in tangibly changing people's lives, and have led to my aspiration of utilizing entrepreneurship to impact the root to solving global problems - public policy and governance - as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar.