The first Ariane de Rothschild Fellows Program, Dialogue & Social Entrepreneurship, was held at New York, from 13th to 25th July 2009, in cooperation with Columbia Business School and the two research centres of Cambridge University (King’s College Centre for History and Economics and the Woolf Institute Centre for Muslim-Jewish Relations). The program allowed the creation of a new model that brings a practical angle to social entrepreneurship and inter-cultural dialogue.

An educational and human experience

For its first year, this program, which takes a unique approach to building relationships and dialogue, brought together a group of 30 brilliant social entrepreneurs drawn mainly from Jewish and Muslim cultures. These Fellows were selected by national juries for both their commitment and their ability to make a lasting social and intercultural impact. Though coming from widely diverse backgrounds they shared a single aspiration: to promote change and social development in a great number of areas, ranging from education to the environment, the arts and healthcare. Bruce Kogut, head of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center at Columbia Business School and Professor of Ethics and Leadership, said he was “thrilled to partner with the Ariane de Rothschild Fellowship and be part of a program that can serve as a model for fostering leadership and building relationships between communities. Columbia Business School’s expertise in management and leadership, coupled with the practical workshops developed by the Cambridge professors make this program wholly unique as an educational, but also as a human, experience.”

A durable network of social entrepreneurs

Firoz Ladak, executive director of the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation said that he was “delighted to help instigate this partnership of scholars from Columbia Business School and the University of Cambridge in building a truly transatlantic initiative. The two weeks of the program have created a durable network of talented social entrepreneurs. The outstanding expertise and commitment of our partners have helped propel the Fellows’ ventures and allowed them to build longstanding connections. It is a great honour for me to have launched such an initiative. We intend to create a lasting network of Ariane de Rothschild Fellows with a true global vision and the ability to capture the benefits of cultural differences.”