Student Exchange for Global Change

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U.S.-Pakistan Global Leadership and STEM Program visits New York City

The U.S.-Pakistan Global Leadership and STEM Program brought ten innovative young women from across the globe to explore what is out there and waiting for them. By excelling in academia, the students from the Army Public Schools and Colleges of Pakistan had the opportunity not just to explore, but to question and to learn about culture, science, and methods around the world. I can’t believe it’s been one week since the end of the 2016 U.S.-Pakistan Global Leadership and STEM Program. This seventeen day program made me more conscious about the way I could have a career in the...

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Meridians’ role in bridging the gap between gender roles in Iraq and facilitating positive change

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IYLEP 2016 at the Washington D.C. Closing Conference

The Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP) recruits the brightest and most forward thinking minds in the country who come to the United States to expand and develop their leadership and cultural diversity skills. IYLEP, a State Department funded program, facilitated by Meridian International Center brought 100 participants, selected from over 2,000 applicants this year, to the U.S. to learn and experience student life at various universities around the country. The program also entails valuable workshops during the opening conference in New York City and during the closing conference in Washington, D.C. The IYLEP participants are consistently presented with...

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Into the Heart of Europe (From Right Here in Washington, DC)

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Networking at the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative

45 European entrepreneurs. 41 different countries. 2 days in DC. 1 marketing and communications intern (me). Last week was my first week interning at Meridian, and I was immediately immersed in European culture and all its diversity with my first project: the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative. I arrived at the State Department for day one of the program. A minute later, a large crowd of people came walking over and waited in line at the security check. Many looked over at me with curiosity, and some came right over, introduced themselves, and asked about my background. I expected...

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Entrepreneurship: A Means for Global Change, Access, and Security

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Russian Social Entrepreneurship Exchange

Entrepreneurship has been hard to define. Today, the word suggests choice, diversity, and opportunity. It is used to describe the common thread between the greatest business leaders, inventors, and movers and shakers of the century. In the past, it has been associated with the spirit and will of capital gain and greed. It was also understood as the doctrine of the business-savvy, powerful, and the well-connected. While the image of entrepreneurship has often appeared to be a tall, western man in a business suit –today’s entrepreneurs represent a collective community of people of many genders, ages, races, classes, and...

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U.K. Parliamentarians Meet with U.S. Representatives through BAPG Exchange Program

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MP's Angela Crawley, Jim McMahon, Ranil Jayawardena, and David Mackintosh meet with Representative Pearce

In 2004, a rising Conservative in the United Kingdom Parliament named Theresa May participated in the British American Parliamentary Group (BAPG), a Department of State exchange program co-founded with the U.K. Parliament in 1977 and administered by Meridian International Center. Ms. May and several colleagues traveled to the United States for meetings with U.S. congressional representatives to learn about America’s political process and its domestic debates, in turn sharing their perspectives on pressing challenges facing the U.K. and Europe. Continue