(Geneva, Switzerland) Making a positive impact - that’s what drives me…

I set myself three main goals this semester. I admit that I frequently feel I am not achieving enough, and a large part of that stems from having too many ambitious goals that I seek to chase simultaneously. I hope that outlining my goals will convince me that I am doing enough. My goals are:

1. Mobilize student partnership to reorient Wharton towards West Philadelphia and social entrepreneurship
2. Succeed at my three year project to make North Korea accept me as an exchange student (preferably at Kim Il Sung University – the other universities are just too un-proletarian)
3. Get a banking job in London, and learn more about the Middle East.

My campaign to get social entrepreneurship introduced meaningfully in Wharton is coming along well, thanks to the efforts of the amazingly supportive network of student leaders I gathered and work with. We have a strategy in place, and our conversations with faculty have been fruitful. All that is left is the big townhall meet with the student body we will hold in November to democratize our deliberations and to galvanize support for our work. A lot of research goes into defining social enterprise and the student learning outcomes we wish to see from such a program, which in turn defines how the program should look like. Student interest is being surveyed too, and with all this information, we hope to have faculty approve the new program/concentration even before it is brought up to the university senate. It is a highly political process, but I believe the experienced partners we brought on can help us navigate the system.

As for project 2, I have been interested in Korean culture and issues since I first saw the Channel News Asia broadcast of a North Korean soldier citing how one of their soldiers can defend against 10 000 US troops. This was three years ago, and although I fervently followed North Korean developments since then, I never succeeded at finding information on how I could do an exchange there. I managed to visit Pyongyang over the summer, and through some contacts made, there is now some momentum that might see me getting the academic exchange I dream off. I realized that a lot of projects start out this way: you plan and prepare for it for years but nothing happens. But that preparation is not in vain, as when the right circumstances fall into place, fortune favors the prepared mind.

Project 3 stems from a conversation with my former boss, Manu Bhaskaran, about where I should work. I realized the diverse markets handled from London, spanning both developed and developing areas, best suits my skill sets. I am also becoming more interested in the Middle East. To this end, I met with a schoolmate whose father is the Minister of Finance of Bahrain, to learn more about the region. It was fascinating hearing her talk about Bahrain’s privatization efforts, Middle Eastern politics and culture, and the role of women in their society. The Gulf States are undergoing a dramatic transformation in their economies. Using oil money, they have begun reinventing themselves along the lines of the Asian tigers, and it will be exciting to watch how these wrenching changes unfold. We also discussed Islamic finance, and my friend pointed me towards Gulf Financial House, one of the leading banks in this area, as an institution to watch.

I know where I am going…it makes me happier and productive.

EduHealth’s work this semester has gotten off to a great start. We streamlined our portfolio of projects to focus on three areas: working with a management 100 team to create and execute a publicity campaign in West Philadelphia for the Sayre Health Center, working with Theresa to expand the internship program and rallying the faculty and student population to push for social entrepreneurship in the Wharton School not just as an extracurricular, but more fundamentally as an academic program with research output.

I am glad that the other student groups we contacted, such as the Wharton Advisory Board, have been enthusiastic about pushing this forward. The fundamental step would be to create a working definition of social entrepreneurship, use it to define a program that serves as our end-goal, and then create the pitch for it. This pitch requires both hard and soft sells: the hard sell would involve gathering data on student interest, comparative studies of what other schools are doing, the number of student groups that exist, and the number of students involved in some social entrepreneurial field work.

However, hard data is seldom enough to persuade as the human being is both visceral and rational. Thus, putting together the EduHealth learning experience, as well as the other experiences of students working in West Philadelphia, is needed to provide a story for all this data to find a context. It is not just students having interests; it is about students going into the field, making a difference, learning new things, and raising the profile of Penn.

(Dalian, China) And so the summer ends…

It has been a whirlwind of work since coming back to school, in stark contrast to the relatively calm routine of my summer (North Korea withstanding). I come back to great news, as Prof. Harkavy informed me that our work on EduHealth had inspired discussions on a possible new concentration or program at Wharton focusing on urban Social Entrepreneurship. Faculty has been involved in the discussion and things are moving ahead. Prof. Asher suggested that a research center focusing on this area be created in support of such a program, and to be developed as a leading research center on social enterprise. What we need to do now is to involve ourselves as catalysts sustaining this momentum and making sure all these become reality.

I have also restarted my Korean studies with the aim of doing an exchange at Kim Il Sung University in North Korea. I have been dedicating significant efforts to finding information in this area and I have turned up several useful leads. I have been asked frequently why I wished to study in North Korea and my answer is simple: there is no other country that offers such an insight into history and communism, and understanding the North Korea psyche and worldview is interesting. With regards to my near-death experience with the soldiers on the train, I learned long ago not to let fear and intimidation prevent me from doing what I want to do, and going to North Korea is a reaffirmation of this value.

My email to the EduHealth team for our fall semester tasks.

Hi everyone,

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” - Winston Churchill

Summer is coming to an end and I finally got round to mapping out the organization structure for next year. I figured out that I need to send this out before heading to North Korea as Jeremy just reminded me that some people don’t come back. It is a long email, but do read this as it is important.

For some of you, I have yet to hear back and have not placed your names on the map. For others, I need confirmation from you so please read the attached document. I will be returning late (Sept 11, bad timing, I know) so you all will need to meet up on your own. Based on last semesters work, I am confident that you all will be able to self-organize and get started thinking about our goal. Jeremy, please organize a meeting so that everyone can discuss how they can go forward with this semester’s work.

The Ghost of EduHealth Past

Based on the one-on-one feedback I did with all of you, we need to meet more frequently as a team (perhaps weekly). Last semester was difficult as we met as a class, and separately as a team, resulting in some people being more informed than others on what is happening. We should also have more cross-group interaction, so please go to each other for resources (Lorna, this is specifically your responsibility). We managed to contribute our efforts to the mentoring program, internship program, and to the healthcare curriculum, even though the journey has not always been smooth. Despite the difficulties (which we sure had a lot), I believe all of you learnt as much as I felt I did. I learnt the most from all of you on the team, as well as with the driven staff at the CCP and from Theresa. I believe that our misunderstanding with Dana has cleared up substantially, and believe our work will proceed much more smoothly now.

Our work evolved into more of creating ideas, and convening partners together to discuss their implementation, rather than direct implementation. I believe this is a good method which we should focus more on, as it ensures that we step on less toes. It might give us less visibility and control over outcomes than being on the frontline, but I believe it would be much more fulfilling to see our ideas being implemented than to get bogged down in conflict.

The Ghost of EduHealth Future (aka fall)

On an overarching level, we will still work towards integrating healthcare and education at EduHealth, but will focus on another objective suggested by Prof. Harkavy. We will use our work to shape Wharton’s attitude towards engaging West Philadelphia. In terms of specific projects, Mark will continue with research on parental involvement, and I hope he remains in touch with Jessica Brown to get this implemented. Michael will continue with the internship program, and he should get in touch with Jessica Brown as soon as possible as she believes an educational program preparing future interns should be implemented by our team by mid-semester.

Danny will coordinate our work geared towards Changing Wharton, since he has made it his college lifelong obsession. We will also need someone to coordinate the MGMT 100 team who will work on raising publicity for the healthcenter. Danny has volunteered for this as he looks forward to making Wharton students less professional, although we could use other people who are interested in working with this team. Jeremy will get in touch with Theresa to see what the MGMT team has to work on. James, if you are still as interested, you could consider working on the Goodventures fundraising pitch.

Change in Personnel – New Chairman Needed

In terms of leadership changes, I would like to welcome Shawn, who previously functioned as our outsourced tech center. He will now be onsite, as we decided that the cost-savings weren’t worth the time difference and funky accents. Lorna will also look into how we can renew our membership base in the future, and develop governance system for us to elect new members into positions.

As mentioned last semester, I will step down from leading this wonderful project although I will remain involved with EduHealth in the future. I hope that we have a few candidates for Chairman by the middle of the semester (before spring break), select someone as vice-chairman after spring break (with the help of our partners), and I can spend the rest of the semester helping to get this person adjusted to this role. I will then retire into some other positions the following semester (if I have not run off for my student exchange). I hope all of you can consider running for Chairman. It’s not the easiest job, and requires a pretty high tolerance for being blamed when anything goes wrong, but the satisfaction of leading a great team, and putting a vision into action, is unbeatable. It involves responsibility and commitment, but is at the same time enjoyable for the opportunity to work with our dedicated partners and mentors. It comes with its fair share of disappointments, but also its triumphant moments. Do think about it, and email me if interested.

(Kashgar, China) Working with freshmen…how long ago that seems…

Thanks to the great work of the Operations department, particularly Jeremy and Jeongsoo, we managed to get a MGMT 100 team to work on implementing a short-term project for EduHealth. MGMT 100 projects are an integral part of the Wharton experience as all incoming freshmen work on an intensive non-profit project and are mentored by their respective non-profits. This is an endorsement from Wharton reflecting the confidence they have in our work, as most clients are established nation-wide non-profits, combined with the rare student organizations that have been around for years. As a newly established organization, I look forward to having fresh minds working with EduHealth, and in mentoring our charges.

Hi Jeremy,

I hope this note finds you well. We have reviewed the School Based Community Health Center Inaugural Ceremony project you submitted and would like to offer this project to student teams in the MGMT 100 course this fall!

Based on past experience, we are cautious to have a student act as the main contact for a MGMT 100 Project. Please know that we are counting on you to recognize your role as a MGMT 100 project contact and mentor to the student team you work with.

Save the Date – We are once again holding a Client Workshop on Wednesday, August 1st from 12:00-2:00PM in JMHH, Room 355. Stay tuned for more details.

We look forward to working with you, please let me know if you have any questions!

Best,
Kim

Feedback - Learning, Teaching, Retaining Talent.

The EduHealth team is truly the most amazing team I had the opportunity to lead. Motivating them to work with me to achieve our vision is my most exciting role in building EduHealth. I will be using the next few weeks to meet with everyone to learn from them, help them learn about themselves, and hopefully to retain them despite the many other interesting distractions college offers.

I would like to know if you have time to meet this [DATE AND TIME], around lunch (after 1pm) or dinner time for about 30 minutes. This session is for me to deliver the feedback Jeremy has been gathering from everyone. I am also really interested in hearing your ideas on EduHealth’s performance, where it should be headed next semester, and most importantly, whether you are interested in continuing engagement with West Philly and in what capacity.

Some things to think about before meeting:

1. Issues (internal and external) that EduHealth must focus on
2. What do you want to do next semester in EduHealth (and in what position)
a. Also consider your time commitments
3. What is your short-term vision for your work, and where do you see it going in the long-term
4. What do you feel I need to improve on
5. Whether you are interested in taking HIST 214 or another independent study class next semester to continue with this work
6. How should we organized EduHealth next semester, and how should selection for key positions be done

Thanks for your great work! I look forward to working with all of you again next year.

(Zhouzhuang, China) Opportunism - using failures to build relations.

I was recently featured by the Daily Pennsylvanian, a newspaper, on its front page for my work on EduHealth and the School Based Community Health Center model. The Center for Community Partnerships pushed for this article, believing that my example would inspire others to contribute to West Philadelphia in creative ways. It was successful and I received several enquiries about my work. However, the article also set off a powder keg in our relationship with one partner.

This partner, a staff running a few health programs in West Philadelphia, was incensed by the article and wrote angrily to a lot of Penn’s administrators demanding recognition for her work. She has been running healthcare programs for 5 years, and definitely contributed a lot to West Philadelphia, but misunderstood the article, which was meant to profile undergraduates contributing back to the community. She has also been distrustful of our work since the start of the year: I believe this partner felt threatened, as she believed our work would displace hers, and might have been upset with the strong support we have received for our models so quickly into our implementation.

That partner openly attacked our work after the article came out. We needed any support we could get from staff on the ground to implement our ideas and it was important that she understands our work. Her reaction caught me by surprise, and as the main interviewee, I had to take responsibility to resolving this issue. More importantly, this was an opportunity to strengthen our working relationship with the people on the ground. We knew that this partner was against our work from early on, and only showed superficial cordiality because her employer strongly supported our work. By bringing these issues to the surface, we forced a discussion on our working relationships and got our partner to acknowledge our work. We were able to discuss the concerns on both sides, and agreed to a more structured partnerships to eliminate overlaps between our roles.

I also wanted to prepare the next generation of EduHealth leaders and this incident gave me a great opportunity to achieve this while strengthening relationships with the partner. I do not want EduHealth to become synonymous with myself; I want to create a lasting institution. This gave me an opportunity to announce my decision to step down as chairman middle to late in the follwoing semester, and involve our partner in choosing the new chairman. I had to leave for my semester abroad anyway, and this served as a strong conciliatory measure that would more deeply institutionalize our partnership with the ground staff. It would also symbolize a fresh start in the working relationship, as I knew some bitterness might remain, and I do not want EduHealth’s work to be seen as a rival to anyone else. I can then move on to take a different role within EduHealth when I return, and allow my other driven and talented teammates to bring EduHealth’s vision to new heights.

A second published work, this time for EduHealth in the Harvard Business Manager. I am so happy.

—–Ursprüngliche Nachricht—–
Von: Gerrit Klingsch
Gesendet: Freitag, 23. Februar 2007 15:42
An:
Betreff: Essay Competition 11th World Business Dialogue

Dear Oikono,

It is a great honour to inform you today about your outstanding achievement in our Essay Competition. Your excellent and brilliant contribution has leaded our jury to the decision that you have written the best essay of the topic “Changing Society – Civilizing the City”. I would like to send you my sincerest congratulations on your excellent performance.

I would like to kindly ask you to give permission to publish your contribution, since the German edition of the Harvard Business Manager is interested in your essay. For this purpose, could you please send us a photo of yours (the one in our application database does not provide the resolution that is required)? In addition, we would like to include your essay into our official documents of the 11th World Business Dialogue.

Best regards
Gerrit

Gerrit Klingsch
Director International Relations
Organisationsforum Wirtschaftskongress (OFW) e.V.
Organizer of the world’s largest student-run business convention

As per Corrine and the requests of others, the essay is here. Note that some of the names are incorrect, which I found out only after new meetings in January, but the core concepts remain relevant.

Communique to the team:

I visited the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) over spring break because they have a lot of great programs, including experience in running school based health centers and healthcare pathways programs with hospitals. I have created a brief summary of useful information.

Do feel free to email me if you have other follow-up questions or CHA programs that you would like more information on.

Research Report from Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) Visit

Rationale for Visit

CHA has a highly integrated healthcare program that includes healthcare career pathways programs, classes, and school-based health centers that have been in operation for several years.

CHA Model

Audience
1. Serves students at school and adults under 24 from the community
2. Three communities served are largely immigrant and conservative societies

Student Involvement
3. Students involved on the periphery in peer health education, but not directly through the SBHC
4. Teen Health Advisory Board provides input to health center on their programs

Relevant Programs
5. Three SBHC clinics.
6. General Health Issues classes taken by 9th graders. Contemporary living classes taken by 10th to 11th graders.
7. Healthcare pathway program where students take classes, and spend two hours during the school day working at a hospital or nursing home. Program spans three years and culminates in a nursing certification

Services Offered

8. Comprehensive Primary Healthcare
9. Confidential Healthcare – Sexual or drug-related healthcare
10. Mental Healthcare through part-time psychologist and full-time social workers

Strengths

1. Program is highly integrated with involvement of community clinics, schools, students, and hospitals. Different programs and institutions communicate and share resources.
a. Staffs have deep understanding of broader mission and strategy for achieving the mission. This facilitates sharing of information across programs.
2. Well-equipped with interpreter service for dealing with immigrant community
3. Funding from multiple sources including federal, state, and private sources
4. Strong emphasis on outreach in terms of
a. Building awareness of health clinics and services (interviewee emphasized importance of this)
b. Building general healthcare knowledge in community
5. Interviewee feels that main advantage of SBHC lies in increasing access to healthcare
a. Transport costs and issues minimized
b. Students do not have to miss school to visit doctors
c. (*) Teaches students how to make clinical appointments, and to take responsibility for their own healthcare

Building Publicity for SBHC services

1. Interviewee emphasized importance of this
2. Multiple publicity channels used including
a. Parents information session
b. Cultural and community events
3. For reaching students, their research identified the most effective channels as…
a. Most effective: Clinic staff speaking in classroom, and meeting clinic staff at community workshop, fair or show
b. Least Effective: School staff (teachers and guidance counselors); school nurse
c. Near Useless: Internet and Mailed Flyers
4. Quizzes on various health-related issues every month to gather information on student perceptions on various issues, and to increase their awareness of healthcare issues

Present Issues

1. Full-time doctors preferred over interns, as students get attached to doctors
2. Students often do not like multiple people in the examination room.
3. Only people under 24 from the community are served because CHA found that adults tend to scare students away.
4. Having families and adults in same waiting room can pose confidentiality issues (see confidential healthcare)

*Managing School-SBHC relationship is very important
1. Interviewee points out how clinic’s work can lead to lots of potential conflict areas with school
a. In Boston specifically, healthcare laws requires provision of confidential sexual healthcare. This is something parents and schools are often weary of. Because of confidential care, clinic is seen by school in a bad light.
b. Issue of student skipping classes to attend clinic, which they are not supposed to, but is difficult to verify. School might call home leading to parents learning that their kids were at the clinic, bridging confidentiality issues.
c. School attendance is mandatory while clinic attendance is optional from school’s perspective, leading to a clash of priorities.

Upcoming Issues

1. Implementation of Universal Healthcare System in July will pose new challenges

Another communique to the team!

A Message to Everyone: Happy Spring Break and Next Steps

I am really glad to see all the great work everyone is putting into West Philadelphia, especially the healthcare mentors who have been spending the last few weeks frantically putting together the applications for the Sayre students’ internships, even when not all the information was readily available.

The semester is coming to an end soon, and I hope we can keep this momentum up for next semester. After your well-deserved spring break, we need to start thinking about what work we have left to complete this semester. We need to complete our work this semester, consider how we can improve on our work for next semester, and decide on our tasks for next semester. Our research projects will be very useful in informing us on this direction. We also need to consider changes in roles and positions, and develop a clear succession plan to ensure continuity in our work. I might take spring semester off to do research (although I will continue to contribute my advice), and we will need new leadership to ensure that our efforts are not wasted.

I would also love to hear any feedback on areas that you think I or anyone else can improve on. Feel free to email me or call me up for a dinner discussion after spring break if you think there are some areas of EduHealth that needs to change, some new ideas that you feel should be implemented, or some processes that are broken and have to be replaced. All of you play a very important role in giving to West Philadelphia, through building up EduHealth. This is your project, and I hope all of you can take ownership by continuing with the great flow of ideas and suggestions.