Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century Event

Thursday 18 February 2021, 12 noon (GMT), India time 5.30 pm by Zoom

University of Southampton India Centre in association with Southampton Business School is delighted to host Sharad Vivek Sagar, an award-winning young millennial global social entrepreneur, whose inspirational leadership has transformed the lives of millions of children and youth. Shut out of formal education for the first 12 years of his life in small towns and villages of India, Sagar's journey to real world has been remarkable, yet humble. One of the milestones in that journey was his education at Tufts University in Massachusetts, with full scholarship, where he graduated with a degree in International Relations.

In 2008, at the age of 16, Sagar founded Dexterity Global with a mission to empowering the next generation of leaders for India and the world, enabling educational opportunities with scholarships, building institutions that groom next generation leaders, and instilling a culture of servant leadership.

Today, Dexterity Global connects over 6.5 million young people and provide them with educational opportunities; their alumni have generated over £5m full scholarship; and they hold an exceptional record of supporting and training over 2 million students, parents and teachers. Forbes calls Dexterity Global “a system of educational platforms” equipping young people with “the mentality to solve “21st century problems with 21st century solutions.” 

Sagar’s work is redefining education and leadership for millions of young Indians. He is a recipient of numerous awards and honours. President Barack Obama invited him to the White House, the Nobel Peace Centre invited him to the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony, the Queen of England included him in “Queen’s Young Leaders” and India’s leading media house Divya Bhaskar called him “the Vivekananda of 21st Century”.  He holds a record of the first freshman at Tufts University to win a $100k entrepreneurship (new ventures) challenge, and numerous awards thereafter including the Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service, the Wendell Phillips Memorial Prize, Paul and Elizabeth Montle Prize and Samuel Huntington Public Service Award. Later in 2016, he delivered the baccalaureate address at Tufts University.

Sagar considers himself a dedicated worker of Swami Vivekananda committed to building servant leaders for India through education. Sagar has been invited globally to speak on education and leadership, and he is the youngest Indian to deliver a Convocation Address. His inspirational talks available on the internet have been watched by millions of people from across the world. Launched by the Dexterity Global Alumni Council, their #20MomentsOfDexterity campaign reached over 1.2 million people through social media and over 100 million people through media stories.