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- It's just such a mind-blowing and eye-opening experience.
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- It actually pushes you to explore ideas and concepts
that you previously would not have considered.
- To be able to achieve the goals that you have
not only for yourself, but for your community.
- [Scholar] And build really strong friendships that I know
I'll have for the rest of my life.
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- But I really can't do my research any longer
without thinking about policy implications
and larger system analysis.
I love biofuels.
Coming into Stanford, I also wanted to have
exposure to economics and policy.
And Knight-Hennessy is a program which has a huge,
huge focus on improving lives globally
and teaching us how to scale our impact.
- Yeah, I mean really surprising too.
People were saying like stuff
I never would've expected and so.
But I'm now here at Stanford studying medicine.
Knight-Hennessy was really attractive to me
because it pushed me outside of the medical school
in ways that would also enrich my advocacy for health equity
and community-oriented solutions to policy failures
we face all around the country.
- And I think it's actually a unique set
of experiences that we have that really shapes
not only how our values evolve over time, but our goals.
I really love the energy in Silicon Valley
and the power of Stanford to inspire people
to tackle some of the most challenging issues
that society faces.
What's really exciting is just exploring completely
different industries that I had very little experience to.
Through using advances in AI.
It's broadened my perspectives on building new technologies
and actually bringing them to as many people as possible.
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The first time I walked into Denning House,
I think the word that popped to mind was, wow.
This place was incredible.
The bright light, the incredible views through the windows.
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Stanford is such a huge campus
but having Denning House is really game-changing.
- We knew that Knight-Hennessy was going to be embedded
in Stanford with the incredible strengths
of Stanford's seven graduate schools
but we decided to do some things that were quite unique.
We told the architect, think home, not office.
Think a place where people from around the world
and across all the disciplines of the university
can come and gather and where they feel welcome.
Every time I come to Denning House, I'm just full of joy,
full of excitement, being able to engage with people,
who are in such different programs,
who are doing such different things than me.
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- I love Denning House, and just being
with the beautiful art pieces
on the walls is very inspiring.
- Oh, yes.
Yeah, I've seen that actually. - Have you seen that?
- Yeah, they're very kid-friendly.
- When you ask the scholars
what's the most valuable aspect of Knight-Hennessy Scholars
they always say, the people.
Knight-Hennessy Scholars is very diverse by design,
and it gives us an opportunity to experiment
with helping people from across different backgrounds
different perspectives, work together
to address the most pressing problems facing the world.
- Some of the initiatives that I have been encouraged
to pursue by my Knight-Hennessy friends, I would have never
pursued had I only allowed myself to think
within the silo of my own department.
Being an engineer in a science, and being a woman
in engineering and science, I think it's very
very important to be an effective science communicator
especially for policy-making.
- All first-year scholars participate in storytelling.
- So of course, being a energetic young lawyer
in a research class, I had to ask,
"Well, is this proposal even possible?"
- [Tina] They learn how to present physically,
how to start a story, how to end a story
how to modulate their voice during a story.
- The takeaway that I want you to have
is that these oral traditions mean something.
We should pay attention to them
and they're critical to the existence of our communities.
- This is one of the most important things that we teach
in our program, is not just how to come up
with a great idea, but how to communicate it
and inspire others to want to get involved with helping you.
We are here to help stretch the scholars,
to get them out of their comfort zone,
both from a disciplinary level,
but also getting them think more broadly
about life and their purpose.
- One of the highlights for me
has been the opportunity to go on scholar retreats
during the program.
Often it leads to some of the most interesting perspectives
and conversations that I've had since coming to Stanford
but also share really great moments together.
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(people cheering)
- Welcome everyone to our KHeystone Projects Showcase.
One of the most exciting projects we have here
at Knight-Hennessy Scholars is the KHeystone Project.
They might be interested in addressing local homelessness
or global poverty or the environment.
In this exhibit were photos that were taken
by the families and patients themselves.
I pitched this idea of,
"Oh, maybe we should give patients cameras
to be able to document their experiences,"
and we've been really surprised
by what patients and their families have had to share.
Things that you would never find
in something like the electronic medical record.
- We give them some funding, we give them mentorship,
and some of these projects even spin out at the end
and turn into nonprofits or for-profit ventures
that really scale.
- The most pressing issue facing behavioral healthcare
is that we simply don't have enough providers.
- Operationalizing abolitionist teaching
and classroom practice.
- As we go earlier in our lives,
the impact of different interventions
have the highest return.
- I think the really special thing
about Knight-Hennessy is how much opportunity there is
for you to develop who you are as a leader.
The type of leadership model I hope to develop is
one that I think really relies on collaborating
with community members who have expertise based
on their lived experiences.
- When I was coming into Stanford and into Knight-Hennessy,
I thought of leadership as a very one-directional concept.
Now I realize that leadership
is much more of an interaction.
It's multiple directions.
It's so much of a collaboration.
- One of the things that I really value in leadership
is the ability to serve the community you seek to lead.
And I think John, Tina, the Knight-Hennessy staff
seeing the way they support us as scholars
has really inspired me to think about
being an inclusive leader going forwards.
That has been truly an incredible opportunity
and a gift for me.
- I would love your input.
- Okay, this is the creative problem-solving.
- Exactly. - Okay, gotcha.
- Exactly, exactly.
In the past, people thought you had to be out in the world
for many, many years before you could take
on a leadership position.
Young people these days don't wanna wait.
They want to tackle things right now.
They want to be prepared to get out in front
and to really make a difference.
The traits, the behaviors, and the goals
that are in our leadership model
are ones that will allow our scholars
to be successful leaders and ethical leaders,
no matter where they go in the world.
- I'm a perpetual optimist,
and one of the things I remain optimistic about
is the ability of young people
to bend the arc of civilization in a positive direction,
and I think perhaps we need this more
than we've needed it in any recent time.
And that's at its heart what Knight-Hennessy is all about,
an environment where people can grow into leaders
that will be multidimensional,
that will be able to collaborate
and work with others across different boundaries.
That's the kind of change that we need.
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