Ashoka Reflections_AUGUST 2023
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C O V E R S T O R Y
Ashoka Reflections | Page 04
Leading Change and Inspiring
Minds: A Journey of Reflection and
Growth
In this candid conversation, Karan Bhola, the Director of the Young India
Fellowship, shares learnings, challenges, and future aspirations for the flagship
programme of Ashoka University
Saman Waheed
Office of PR & Communications | Ashoka University
Karan Bhola is the Director of the Young India Fellowship (YIF) at Ashoka University. He previously led YIF
outreach and admissions and was the founding President of Ashoka University's Alumni Association. Besides
being a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University, Karan is also an alumnus of Harvard University, where he
pursued a master’s degree in Higher Education Administration as a Fulbright Scholar.
In a recent interview, he takes us through his homecoming trajectory–from a Young India Fellow to leading
the programme as its Director. He recounts how his time at Ashoka and Harvard has shaped him and how he
envisions the future of the Fellowship to look like.
Now that the first year of the Fellowship with you as the Director has successfully concluded, what
have been some key takeaways/learnings during this time? And is there something that you would
have done differently?
I am still honestly reflecting on the year that has gone by. What I can definitely say at the moment is that
every day has been a learning experience and a novel one at that. It has been a year of assimilating all of that
wisdom, both from the team and the Fellows. Over several years, Dean Brar has set systems and structures
in a way that helped me ease into the role quite comfortably.
There has been one important affirmation–that it is crucial to centre things around the Fellows. The
Fellowship is the Fellows, and we have to be reflective of it in design, thought and action. Given that Fellows
play a critical role in each other’s journey of learning and discovery, it becomes imperative that the cohort be
diverse on various counts. Importantly, every single person who is involved with the programme—be it the
Fellows, the Team, or friends, has something to offer. So, it becomes all the more important for me to have
an ear to the ground, to see how we could synergise each other's strengths for the community as a whole. I
engaged closely with Fellows in the past year via office hours and over smaller group meals, which was one of
the most fulfilling aspects of my first year.
We have also leveraged the integrated Team YIF set-up to be even more data-driven in our approach. An
example of this is curating the ELM (Experiential Learning Module) projects after we have a primary
understanding of the cohort's interests through admissions. It is critical to hold the lens of equity and
inclusion, right from application review until graduation.
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