6 minute read
Thunderbird: The Next 75 years
By Dr. Sanjeev Khagram
CHERISHING (AND LEARNING FROM) OUR HISTORY
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In the last decade, our world has faced tremendous changes and challenges. Globalism is under attack, the climate is in peril, and technologies are shifting and reshaping every aspect of our lives. Then, last year we were all hit by the COVID-19 pandemic – perhaps the defining moment of the 21st century.
The pandemic tested us on every level – business, economy, governance, health, environment, social fabric, culture, and certainly education. Many people, countries, and enterprises were unprepared for the challenges. But as in any defining moment, along with the great challenges and complexities of the pandemic, there have also been tremendous opportunities to rebuild and rejuvenate.
Once again, Thunderbird is being called to duty to transform the world, just as we did after World War II. On the heels of the Second World War, our beloved institution was founded on a set of timeless goals and fundamental values: connecting people, enterprises, governments, and cultures around the world and training future global leaders and managers for careers in international trade and global relations. It is not accidental that Thunderbird was founded the same year as the United Nations.
Since then, the world has evolved dramatically through eras – decolonization and the emergence of new nation states (when Thunderbird was founded, most of the peoples of the world were under colonial rule, including my own family), the Cold War, the New International Economic Order, the end of the Cold War and globalization 3.0 in the 1990s, 9-11-2001, the Global Financial Crisis – and now COVID-19.
This year, we are proud to be celebrating our 75th anniversary. We’ve completed the most significant turnaround in higher education history, we have overcome many significant obstacles and we are now positioned to shape our next 75 years. Because of the foundation laid by our founders and our constant dedication to our vision and mission, especially the love and dedication of Thunderbird alumni, students, staff, faculty, and leadership, we have survived and thrived.
See a visual representation of Thunderbird’s evolution on page 10.
WE ARE CREATING THE FUTURE
As we move forward, we are advancing our transformation with grit, agility, focus, determination, passion, and compassion. We are ready, rolling up our sleeves, actively creating the next 75 years. We are building the most global and digital professional school in the world in order to achieve our vision of inclusive and sustainable prosperity worldwide.
Our digital global mindsets, our engagement across cultures and sectors, and our openness and passion about diversity in all its forms – these quintessential Thunderbird qualities build synergy with each other and combine to set us apart from any other institution in the world.
We have created an incredible community and we continue to expand and diversify. Thunderbird is a worldwide network of sensors, seekers, and servant-leaders. We have more than 46,000 alumni around the world and we have elevated the careers of over one and a half million professionals through executive education, Thunderbird for Good, and our regional centers of excellence such as the CBSD in Moscow. All of these are part of the Thunderbird worldwide network and make up a real-time, dynamic database of knowledge, wisdom, and insights that enable us to sense the pulse of change and progression.
Our soon-to-be 20+ regional centers of excellence are a revolutionary part of this network. They’re our hubs for sensing change. For example, our early insights about the pandemic from our Shanghai and Seoul centers helped us to prepare, adapt and lead, enabling a seamless transition through the pandemic. These regional centers have and will continue to expand our global footprint and global impact.
The heartbeat of this worldwide network is our new global headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona. It will set the stage for the rest of the hubs and enable collaboration, connectivity, language learning, innovation and so much more. It is the embodiment of the digital global mindset. And we couldn’t imagine a better place to house this global hub than in Phoenix, which in and of itself is an embodiment of the digital global mindset and evolution.
Phoenix, like Thunderbird, has overcome many challenges, emerging stronger and more resilient. From the ‘Wild West’ to the fastest-growing city in the country in less than a century, Phoenix now welcomes a growing global population. Phoenix Global Rising, a program we launched in collaboration with the city, aims to take that globalization and diversification even further – to foster international trade and development, achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and strengthen the global entrepreneurial ecosystem.
As we continue to advance our transformation and work to create the future every day, we’ll be propelled forward by our global web of alumni and T-bird Connect, our regional centers, our digital global headquarters, and the principles on which Thunderbird was founded and is again thriving with. We are once again the vanguard of the vanguard – the most global and digital leadership, management, and business school in the world.
THUNDERBIRD 2096: THUNDERBIRD ACADEMY OF INTERGALACTIC LEADERSHIP
ADVANCING SUSTAINABLE AND INCLUSIVE PROSPERITY IN THE UNIVERSE
Over the last several months, we have engaged with many of our stakeholders – including students, alumni, professors, and others – to imagine, indeed invent, Thunderbird for the next 75 years. We have been inspired and energized by the provocative ideas that have come from these sessions (see an artist's illustration of these ideas on page 38).
Perhaps the most crystallized vision of Thunderbird in 2096 so far came from our Thunderbird Global Alumni Council Co-Chair and CEO of ARUHI Corporation in Japan, Hiroshi Hamada ’91:
- Hiroshi Hamada '91, CEO of Aruhi Corporation and Co-Chair of Thunderbird Global Alumni Network (TGAN).
“Seventy-five years from now, we will be the Thunderbird Academy of Intergalactic Leadership. We will have 75 centers of excellence around the world and in space. Our classes will be run by XR without XR glasses and students will be able to attend classes anywhere and everywhere taught via avatars or holograms. All of our students and learners will participate in high-tech, hightouch, dynamic, customized, and experiential transformative learning.”
Here are some additional incredibly provocative ideas:
• Our digital global and even interplanetary mindsets and skill sets will be ubiquitous
• We’ll be a leader of the Seventh Industrial Revolution
• 75 regional centers of excellence will bring the Thunderbird network to every corner of the world, every major market – and space
• Undreamed of technologies will allow students and learners to take classes anywhere, anytime, anyplace with equal access for all throughout our entire lifetimes
• Our faculty will be prominent thought leaders across the private, public, civic and non-human intelligence sectors worldwide and into outer space
• The United Nations will be in version 7.0, having achieved the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Futures Goals, and now into the Interplanetary Goals
Building the future will take our entire Thunderbird global family, a global village. During the global headquarters grand opening, global reunion, and 75th anniversary celebration later this year, we will hold a special session to present and discuss the ideas curated.
While I would never rule out the possibility, because we can’t predict the precise details of where technology will take us, I and most of us likely won’t be around in 2096. But I have full confidence that Thunderbird will
be thriving, providing indispensable value for global – and indeed, intergalactic – leaders, future-ready for the 21st century.
Construction progress on Thunderbird Global Headquarters in February 2021.
Project Artemis graduate, Rangina Hamidi, paying her employee in Kandahar. Ragina has since been named Minister of Education in Afghanistan.
