The Babson College Global Leadership Development Experience (GLDE) is an intense immersion program where students partner with innovative student entrepreneurs, corporate and nonprofit executives, and world-class faculty while working to create innovative, real-world solutions to social, economic, and environmental issues in a collaborative and challenging environment. 
This year, Ashesi students Richard Odame ’15 (with Ghana flag) and Sihaam Sayuti ’15 (2nd from right in front row) were selected to join the program, and ahead of their final team presentation, Richard writes about their experiences in Boston.
It has been approximately three weeks since we arrived in the U.S for the Babson Global Leadership Development Experience (GLDE). With Babson’s reputation as the number one entrepreneurial school in the U.S, we were excited to be selected for the GLDE because it is a great platform for capacity building and learning that a lot of Ashesi students look forward to.
This year, the GLDE student team has been assigned a unique challenge: consulting for the United Nations on projects that focus on global education and the Millennium Development Goals. Our team has been working on ways to create awareness and engagement among students for the promotion of Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME).
As part of the project, we have been able to design a mini-case competition as a model for all business students to adopt. The model relies heavily on social media as an interactive tool to drive expected change and impact.
The program has been fantastic. Meeting other emerging leaders and promising colleagues has added a multi-cultural layer to our conversations, and we are learning a lot about the different views and opinions our peers have of the world. We are also learning to think more broadly about global issues and our role in shaping them as entrepreneurial leaders.
A few hours from now, we will be presenting our final creative intervention to the United Nations PRME Secretariat in New York. Interestingly, the Black Stars of Ghana will also be preparing to play their opening World Cup game against the United States, our current host country! We have been the Black Stars’ biggest cheerleaders since we arrived in Boston, and we have assured all the Americans we have met at Babson that they are losing this game. The US has lost against Ghana in our past two World Cup games, and some of my GLDE colleagues believe this will be third time lucky for the Americans. We still say, “not likely.”
We will be watching the match at The Wharf Bar and Grill, in New York, after our presentation to the United Nations team. I have already played with team Ghana against the US on a PlayStation 4, and I ‘led’ Ghana to a 3 – 0 win. That might as well be my prediction for today. We will proudly be waving the red, gold and green flags in New York today, and wish the Ghana Black Stars Godspeed on their World Cup journey!