Samantha Kappagoda, Chief Economist of Risk Economics, was invited to participate in the judging panel for the first Girl Scout Leadership Institute (GSLI) on July 13, 2013 at the Athena Center at Barnard College.
The first part of the Leadership Institute is a 10-Day Summer Intensive focused on providing a transformative immersion into the world of ethical and effective entrepreneurship. The Summer Intensive was adapted from the Athena Center and Barnard College’s office of Pre-college Program’s Entrepreneurs in Training curriculum, and will kick off with a weekend at the Girl Scouts’ Camp Kaufmann followed by eight days on the Barnard College campus. Participants will be guided through the process of creating an idea for a socially responsible business. Talented high school girls will work in small teams to develop their ventures through guided, experiential workshops.
The Girl Scout participants will see the benefit of their new skills in action by visiting a local start-up, a venture fund, and a major corporation. At the end of the program, girls will have two opportunities to present their plans — once to their families and then as part of a “pitch session” to a panel of leaders from the local startup arena. Girls will see the benefit of their new skills in action by visiting a local start-up, a venture fund, and a major corporation. At the end of the program, girls will have two opportunities to present their plans — once to their families and then as part of a “pitch session” to a panel of leaders from the local startup arena.
The Girl Scout Leadership Institute-NYC (GSLI-NYC), in partnership with Barnard College’s Athena Center for Leadership Studies, is a critically important next step to ensure girls gain and practice leadership skills, become active participants in driving systemic changes and reform in their communities and the world at large, and have significant access to successful female role models. GSLI-NYC was launched as a pilot program for a diverse group of 50 high school girls from the five boroughs of New York City in 2013, and ultimately engage 150 young women annually to participate in a comprehensive leadership program.
Samantha Kappagoda is Chief Economist and Co-founder of Risk Economics, a New York City based advisory firm. She provides advisory services as well as research and development (R&D) of rigorous analytics with applications to large-scale, real-world modeling and surveillance of global macroeconomic trends, socioeconomics, demographics and geopolitics.
As lead for the Risk Economics® macroeconomic and portfolio strategy advisory practice, Samantha Kappagoda’s areas of expertise include currency, fixed income, commodity and capital markets activity, as well as business cycle dynamics, econometric time-series and longitudinal analyses of consumer behavior, labor markets, wealth and income distribution, housing, population and immigration, political risk and international trade, resource allocation, environment, health, aging and retirement.
