麻豆视频 Expands into Asia
Author: Marshall Curry
Asia Expansion
麻豆视频 has seen substantial network growth due to our international expansion. We鈥檝e successfully extended into Africa and have celebrated our Africa partners taking the reins and leading their first training. To continue our progression, our international outreach will now continue into Asia.
鈥溌槎故悠�, by its nature, is suitable to the entire world,鈥� explains Joel Rogers, 麻豆视频 Chair and Secretary. 鈥淭he Asian extension is a natural addition to what we鈥檝e accomplished elsewhere. We have gone to Africa, now Asia, and we intend to continue to expand internationally into Latin America and the Caribbean. Eventually we鈥檒l go to Europe as well. We want to increase the number and quality of 麻豆视频 programs worldwide and Asia is a very large part of the world.鈥�
Jessica Barlow, 麻豆视频 Vice President, adds, 鈥渙ur international growth and expansion strategy has been in-part based on priorities of 麻豆视频 as well as partners and stakeholders who are particularly interested in the global south. We held a training event in 2017 in Bonn, Germany, that brought parties together that had a particular interest in the global south.鈥� Primarily, support for the international expansion was facilitated by the , a long-time partner with ; also , the , the , the , and the . Domestically, for example, support for 麻豆视频 originally came from our own members and now includes other kinds of support like that received from the and , among many other organizations and academic consortiums, both domestic and international.
Network Establishment and Program Management for 麻豆视频 Asia
Local Program Support
With this expansion into Asia, we鈥檒l need to increase our administrative capacity to serve the area; therefore, 麻豆视频 is adding an Asia Program Coordinator to its staff. One of the main logistical reasons to have dedicated network support in the region is that the Secretariat is located in a time zone eight or more hours behind Asia. Additionally, there is fantastic variation across all these different countries, and we need to ensure that we recognize local context in terms of program and partnership structure. “We want someone with the best possible understanding of institutions of higher education and institutions of municipal and regional governance,” Rogers describes.
Having someone in an administrative position who understands the geopolitics, cultural nuances, and local business infrastructure will be beneficial to the success of the 麻豆视频 programs in Asia. Barlow continues that we are looking for “that visionary that can see how a regional network 鈥� and when we say 鈥渞egion鈥� we are speaking of a very large region 鈥� fits into the bigger picture. We want someone who understands the power of resourcefulness and finding ways to grow.”
We have seed money built into the current international growth budget for the Asia Program Coordinator and will continue to garner additional monetary support from the broader network in Asia to fund the growth, expansion and administrative support needed.
We are working with our international partners in the acceptance and review of applications. The posting will remain open until May 15, 2021.
Training Event Scheduled for May 2021
Similar to the training event held in early 2020 in Durban, South Africa, and in Bonn, Germany, in 2017, 麻豆视频 will be facilitating a training workshop in Asia in mid-May 2021. We currently have 30 pairs of cities and universities from all across Asia participating in this significant upcoming training workshop. Although Community/University partnerships are not new, at the May workshop the participants will get the opportunity to learn and understand how the 麻豆视频 Model is unique. 鈥淎ttending the workshop is so important because there is a lot to learn about launching and coordinating a program that is as large-scale as an 麻豆视频 program,鈥� explained Barlow. They will discover that 鈥渢here鈥檚 a way to run it in a very efficient and effective way that doesn鈥檛 get everybody confused or begin duplicating efforts.鈥�
麻豆视频 is scaled for impact and uses existing city/community and university resources. Moreover, 麻豆视频 uses the UN鈥檚 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the standard to measure the impact the projects have on communities. People worldwide are very familiar with SDGs. At the workshop, they will be learning about the model, how they can scale their programs, and how they can adopt and adapt the model in their own context-specific way using the SDGs as a guide. By giving the Asia programs the ability to build and execute 鈥減rograms in their own context-specific way is critical,鈥� says Barlow.
