Deadline: 19-Sep-23
The Malaysia Acumen Fellowship is an rigorous leadership program that brings together a cohort of extraordinary individuals working on problems of poverty and equips them with the knowledge, skills, and community to strengthen their leadership and scale their ventures to create meaningful change in Malaysia.
After Fellow Candidates complete the program they join The Foundry, a community of like-minded peers who are working across sectors and geographies to build a world based on dignity. As part of this diverse community committed to sharing ideas and experiences, they gain access to capital, coaching, and continuous learning as part of lifelong accompaniment on their journey to creating social change.
- Draw inspiration from thought-provoking readings, videos, and reflections.
- Combination of virtual and in-person seminars to allow flexibility
- Get expert coaching and consulting from the partners
- Gain recognition for your work to amplify impact across new domains
Program Details
The following is a high-level overview of the Fellowship curriculum:
- Polarities Management: Cultivate the ability to lead effectively when opposing but interdependent values are in tension.
- Good Society Reading: Explore the meaning of a just society and the moral and historical foundation of social change through classic and contemporary texts by thinkers such as Plato, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Amartya Sen.
- Adaptive Leadership: Learn what it means to catalyze change at the personal, organizational, and societal levels, navigating uncertainty and embracing the gradual process that is meaningful change.
- Authentic Voice: Develop the capacity to tell meaningful stories that speak across lines of difference and move others to action.
Benefits
Once graduated, alumni from the Fellowship and Accelerator programs join The Foundry, gaining access to online resources, financial capital, expert mentorship, and opportunities to showcase their work and expand their reach.
- Connect with deep local and diverse global community: Expand your network of social innovators for support and collaboration
- Secure early-stage funding: Pitch for early-stage catalytic capital through Acumen Angels
- Leverage expert support to scale impact: Get expert coaching and consulting from the partners
- Elevate your impact in the public eye: Gain recognition for your work to amplify impact across new domains
- Learn to think differently: Solve challenges with tools and learning resources purpose-built for social innovators
Fellowship Impact
- Fellows come from all walks of life – they work in all sectors, industries, and issue areas, and share the determination and vision to build a world based on dignity. The Fellows Program supports the Fellows’ impact across three levels:
- Individual: Fellows are challenged to reflect on their values and behavior, and to change the way they think of and engage with larger systems to create a world based on dignity
- Organizational: The program offers a space to practice new leadership methods that create different outcomes in their teams and organizations
- Societal: The program enables a deeper understanding of how to extend the influence directly or through the organizational work across their broader communities and ecosystems
- At its core, the Fellowship is focused on translating this impact into three interconnect outcomes:
- The Foundry: Fellows belong to the global community, The Foundry, that accompanies them over a lifetime, creating opportunities for support, collaboration and collective impact.
- Moral Leadership: Fellows help catalyze the practices of Moral Leadership within society, building a growing movement that strives to role model a world based on dignity.
- Reimagining success: Fellows help shape the actions of their organizations and initiatives to build solutions that reimagine the goals, structures, and rules of existing systems in order to engage with systemic problems of poverty.
Eligibility Criteria
Who are they looking for?
- The Fellowship looks for “builders” who are working to solve problems of poverty. Builders include Founders, CEOs, and senior leaders (COO, MD, etc.) at for-profit, nonprofit, or hybrid social enterprises as well as corporate or government sector intrapreneurs. While these titles offer a glimpse of the types of roles Fellows play, what matters most is what you’re building and the track record of your impact.
- Applicants must have a minimum of 5 years of professional experience and should be able to demonstrate their commitment to solving issues of poverty.
- Applicants should demonstrate their ability and willingness to give (contributing their knowledge, experiences, networks, and/or ideas) and receive support from the Foundry.
- Applicants must have a reliable internet connection, be fully available to participate throughout the entirety of the program, and be able to participate in English or Spanish depending on the region and medium of instruction.
For more information, visit Acumen Academy.