Global Courant 2023-04-26 10:40:06
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who led her country through a devastating mass shooting, will temporarily join Harvard University later this year, Kennedy School dean Douglas Elmendorf said Tuesday.
Ardern, a global icon of the left and an inspiration to women around the world, has been appointed to dual fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School. She will serve as the 2023 Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow and Hauser Leader in the school’s Center for Public Leadership starting this fall.
“Jacinda Ardern showed the world strong and empathetic political leadership,” Elmendorf said in a statement, adding that Ardern “will bring important insights to our students and generate vital conversations about the public policy choices facing leaders at all levels.” .”
Ardern, who was just 37 when she became prime minister in 2017, shocked New Zealanders when she announced in January that she would be stepping down after more than 5 years because she no longer had “enough in the tank” to do justice. She faced increasing political pressure at home, including her handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which was initially widely praised but later criticized by those opposed to mandates and regulations.
She said she sees Harvard’s opportunity as an opportunity not only to share her experience with others, but also to learn.
“As leaders there is often very little time for reflection, but reflection is critical if we are to properly support the next generation of leaders,” she said.
Ardern’s time at the University of Cambridge, Massachusetts, also includes a stint as the first technical administration fellow at the school’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
The center has been a key partner as New Zealand worked to confront violent extremism online after a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people in two mosques in the city of Christchurch in 2019, Ardern said. The gunman livestreamed the massacre on Facebook for 17 minutes before the video was removed.
Two months after the shooting Ardern launched the Christchurch Call with French President Emmanuel Macron. The aim of the initiative is to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.
More than 50 countries participated in the initiative, including the United States, Great Britain, Germany and South Korea, as well as technology companies such as Facebook parent company Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, YouTube, Zoom and Twitter.
“The center has been an incredibly important partner in developing the Christchurch Call to Action to tackle violent extremism online,” said Ardern, adding that the fellowship will not only be an opportunity to collaborate with the research community of the center, but also to work on the challenges surrounding the growth of generative AI tools.
Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Berkman Klein Center, said it’s rare that a head of state can delve deeply into a complex and fast-moving digital policy issue.
“Jacinda Ardern’s hard-won expertise — including her ability to bring diverse people and institutions together — will be invaluable as we all search for workable solutions to some of the deepest online problems,” he said in a statement.
Ardern said she planned to return to New Zealand after the fellowships.
