DDD’s Other Graduates

To build capacity in Southeast Asia, we often call upon talent from abroad to mentor our managers. And in doing so, we’ve almost inadvertently created another corps of leaders: the league of volunteers, fellows and staff from the US, other parts of Asia, Australia and Europe that have passed through DDD’s doors. After shaping and being shaped by DDD, so many have “graduated” on but remained engaged in the world of social change.

We often talk about DDD as a platform for developing human resource capacity in Southeast Asia. Our model focuses on empowering our staff in Cambodia and Laos through work and education. To us, the component of apprenticeship is critical to the impact we have on our employees: our staff learn as much on the operating floor and around the conference table as they do in the classroom. Over and over again, we hear from our employees that DDD changed them by believing in them enough to invest in them and hold them to high standards–our employees are proud to work hard and push themselves to exceed expectations. It’s our hope that through this investment, we are empowering a new generation of leaders in the places where we work.

A byproduct of this work is that, to build capacity in Southeast Asia, we often call upon talent from abroad to mentor our managers. And in doing so, we’ve almost inadvertently created another corps of leaders: the league of volunteers, fellows, (expats, falang,) and staff from the US, other parts of Asia, Australia and Europe that have passed through DDD’s doors. After shaping and being shaped by DDD, so many have “graduated” on but remained engaged in the world of social change.

This summer, I had the pleasure of reuniting with two of these graduates, Shabnam Aggarwal and Alicia Conway. Both originally came to DDD from the private sector, looking for a change. They got one, working for DDD in Phnom Penh. Both Shab and Alicia have long since moved on, but are still committed to social innovation. Alicia was in San Francisco for the summer conducting audits for B Lab, evaluating the social and environmental standards of B Corp companies to certify them as good businesses. Shabnam spent the summer at the Unreasonable Institute, honing the vision for her Tech to Teach world tour, with the goal of exploring how technology can empower education in the developing world.

These are just two immediate examples of DDDers going on to do great things–we’re proud of all of them! Friends and stories like these remind me how much DDD shapes all who work here by showing us that we don’t have to be doctors or billionaires or Bono to create substantive change. Increasingly, social innovators are computer engineers, artists, writers and businessmen, finding new ways to leverage their skills to do something good.