Introducing the 2021-2022 Legatum Fellows
The Legatum Center at MIT is excited to introduce a new cohort of 19 entrepreneurs into the Legatum Fellowship. The Legatum Fellowship is a competitive program designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs gain a world-class education at MIT, as well as extensive mentor and community support, in order to maximize their likelihood of success as principled, impactful leaders in emerging markets. Each year we build a cohort of students dedicated to building and scaling ventures in the developing world and provide them with financial support, a customized educational curriculum, and access to a global community of entrepreneurs, mentors, and global leaders.
This year’s Fellows are passionate about scaling innovations to address systems-level problems that look to redistribute power into the hands of lower-income and marginalized people. In healthcare, Fellows are using AI, telemedicine, and mobile phones to connect patients in resource-strapped environments with the care that they need. Fellows are also redefining commerce and creating new opportunities for earning and saving income through social commerce and buy now-pay later payment solutions.
In particular, over a third of the cohort is tackling issues of financial inclusion. The entrepreneurs are designing scalable ways for employees to access their wages on demand, the unbanked to create digital wallets, smallholder farmers to access finance, and people to invest in domestic and international markets regardless of income level. The innovations are positioned to revolutionize their markets and create pathways for shared prosperity.
The Center is also happy to welcome one of its most diverse cohorts. Together, the Fellows have traveled almost 120,000 miles to study at MIT, speak 15 languages, and represent 10 programs at MIT and Harvard. Their ventures span eight sectors and operate in 21 countries.
The Fellows join a large network of entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and donors who carry the banner of creating impact through entrepreneurship. Since its founding in 2007, the Legatum Center has supported over 350 Fellows, and the current cohort of fellows are supported by the Mastercard Foundation, the Legatum Group, and the Jacobs Foundation.
Congratulations to the new 2021-2022 cohort and welcome to the Legatum community!
This blog post was authored by Regie Mauricio.
