The Founding Intent and Vision

In 2017, Harvard Business School professors Tarun Khanna and Karim Lakhani launched the Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program (CELP), a precursor of the Aspire Leaders Program that has since grown from a small experimental program in Dubai to a global movement involving hundreds of thousands of students around the world. The Aspire Leaders program had the founding intent of “encouraging people to take charge of their own futures, and to lean into their own prospects,” according to Tarun Khanna, in a recent interview. The program’s “bias to action” shaped its evolution as it was transformed by 2022 into the Aspire Leaders Program.

The program emerged from Harvard University’s Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute in partnership with Goulam Amarsy and the Harvard Business School Club of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Karim Lakhani had taught numerous smaller-scale programs at Harvard Business School to less-represented populations and was a believer in the power of technology to create models that achieve scale. Khanna and Lakhani realized that the program had the potential to reach well beyond the Harvard campus to have worldwide impact. Tarun Khanna brought over two decades of experience studying entrepreneurship and economic development in emerging markets and had a vision for creating pathways for marginalized talent to access mainstream economic opportunities. Khanna described how “tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of kids who are at the beginning of their careers lack the social capital, networks, and mentors.” The new Aspire Leaders Program was built to fill that gap, with the philosophy that “talent is widespread, but opportunities and resources are not.”

Serendipity and Scaling

The Aspire Leaders program was shaped both by its initial plan and organic growth. As Khanna described it, “any startup venture is a combination of intent, learning and serendipity.” The initial CELP started in 2017 as a week-long intensive, in-person experience centered in Dubai for 80 finalists, who competed for spots in the prestigious program. Harvard faculty delivered a multidisciplinary curriculum through case studies, discussion groups, and mentorship sessions. From the beginning, the program had global reach – drawing students from 35 countries across South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, but impacted only limited numbers of students.With the COVID pandemic, HarvardX courses with online discussions positioned the program for massive scaling with a newly developed bespoke online platform. With active learning and peer to peer engagement, the platform offered a type of scaled education unavailable from commercial products. As Khanna described it, “the reason we can scale is – pedagogically, we tap into an unlimited number of experts, motivated by the satisfaction of reaching a previously hard to reach demographic.” By 2021, the program reached thousands of students from 135 countries around the world. Students had access to Harvard faculty across multiple disciplines, including professors from Harvard Kennedy School, Graduate School of Design, School of Public Health, and Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

A New Start as the Aspire Institute

In 2021, the program separated from Harvard into the Aspire Institute, a new non-profit organization to enable wider horizons beyond Cambridge. Khanna described how the shift was based on the“desire to tap into faculty expertise anywhere in the world and not just limit ourselves to Harvard faculty.” With 60,000 students in 2024, the Aspire Leaders Program is on track to reach 250,000 this year, 500,000 in calendar year 2026, and to meet its audacious goal to reach 1,000,000 students annually by 2027. The Aspire Leaders Program is based on two core modules over eight weeks of instruction. Module 1 focuses on Personal & Professional Development with self-assessment, resume writing workshops, and networking strategies. Module 2 is the signature Aspire Horizons Course, designed and delivered by Harvard University faculty, training students to be leaders in an age of digital transformation and AI. The module culminates in a final social impact project in which students identify a social issue in their community and draft a proposal for a solution. The modules are supplemented with synchronous discussions led by world-class educators who provide Masterclasses across diverse disciplines. Any student can join the program for free after a simple 10-minute application process that verifies that they meet the eligibility requirements, which require college students or recent graduates between the ages of 18 and 29 be either a first-generation university student or come from a limited-income background. The instruction is intense, generally requiring 5-6 hours a week, and yet many students complete the program while fulfilling daunting work and family responsibilities.

In-Person Experiences and Community Impact

While the Aspire Leaders program had achieved impressive scale, it also offers transformative in-person experiences. Students who complete the online program can receive additional support and funding through a competitive process. In 2021, a cohort of graduates were selected to join a finalist class of 114 students for extended learning opportunities, such as Community Action Awards, academic and professional development Mini Grants, a Mentorship Program and in-region internship placements. Khanna described the Extended Leadership Opportunities as a chance to “catalyze individual agency wherever people are.” As students gathered locally, they developed new connections, and the program soon grew by word of mouth. Based on this organic growth, the Aspire Institute established "Foundries" as regional hubs outside of the original Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters. Foundries are now based in Lahore, Pakistan; Delhi, India; São Paulo, Brazil; La Paz, Bolivia; Istanbul, Turkey, and soon will be in Monterrey, Mexico. The Foundries are managed by a network of Regional Faculty Advisors providing local expertise and cultural context, and a regional mentor network supports individualized consultations across five global regions: Asia and Oceania, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, and US and Europe. Khanna described the foundries as “physical outposts that are staffed full time by professionals” who can “evangelize” and “develop partnerships with institutions, sometimes dozens of institutions in their local country, sometimes region and continue to organize physical activities for alumni.” The growing alumni base receives lifelong support and can apply for funding for Community Action Awards to scale existing social impact projects, Academic Advancement Grants for professional certifications, Seed Funds for community ventures, and can gain access to workshops for continued professional development.

Toward a Future Where Every Young Person Achieves their Full Potential

As the Aspire Leaders Program moves forward with its goal to train over 1,000,000 future leaders annually by 2027, it is expanding its partnership network with universities, corporations, and governments worldwide. The program is also exploring new techniques for using AI to personalize learning while maintaining human connection. Its unique leveraging of technology with an emphasis on participatory learning makes the program “future proof,” according to Khanna. The expansion of the Foundries network and new curricular units focusing on global challenges such as climate change, digital transformation, and social entrepreneurship will help students shape the emerging future. Khanna in an interview reflected that thousands of the program’s graduates pursue community impact initiatives, get awards and encouragement for new startups, and pursue academic advancement. “With so many new projects each year, if even a fraction take off, that’s still pretty good, scaled impact. We’re excited about the possibilities.” Through its current network of nearly 500,000 alumni impacting their communities around the world, Aspire is making great progress on its vision to create “a future where every young person achieves their full potential and contributes their leadership and talents to build thriving communities.”