IREX

At the 10th anniversary Impact Fellowships Summit, 92 fellowship leaders, designers, and practitioners came together over four days to share what’s working and what needs to evolve. One of the emerging lesson: we need to stop talking about fellowships as #philanthropy . Philanthropy is generosity without expectation of return. Well-designed fellowships are something else entirely: they are talent pipeline and market-shaping strategies with measurable ROI. The data is increasingly hard to ignore. In the IREX IFN 2026 Impact Study: • 88% of alumni gained career-readiness skills • The top gains were communication, leadership, and career development • Alumni reported improvements inside their organizations in partnerships, processes, and funding But the employer-side evidence may be even more important. In IREX’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative: • 1 in 4 U.S. host organizations expanded into new markets or developed new products • 1 in 5 increased revenue or raised new funding • 87% reported organizational growth or innovation That is not charity. That is economic value creation. And the returns compound. A fellow from Panama builds technology companies and continues collaborating with her U.S. host years later. A fellow from Zimbabwe builds a meteorological data company that creates market access opportunities for U.S. firms across Africa. Across the Mandela Washington Fellowship network, 27% of alumni developed direct business collaborations with Americans. This is what too many organizations still miss: fellowships are not just leadership experiences. They are long-term infrastructure for trust, workforce readiness, innovation, market access, and strategic relationships. The most effective fellowships do not simply train individuals. They create networks that keep producing value long after the formal program ends. That is the real asset. And increasingly, the market is noticing. Development Gateway: An IREX Venture IREX Emerging Public Leaders Rebecca Bell Meszaros Dalen Todd Josh Powell Jill Miller Michael Mirny Cheryl Schoenberg Michael Dyer Teach For America #leadership #fellowship #management Mandela Washington Fellows Association of Ghana (MWFAG) MWFAAN Nigeria YLAI / Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Kassaga Arinaitwe Betsy Williams Philip Davidovich Rebecca Zylberman Arielle Gousse

I’m sharing a quick profile card that summarizes the kind of work I do best. I’m a Product Designer and AI Experience Designer focused on turning complex systems into clear, usable, human-centered products. My strongest work sits at the intersection of: • AI-driven product design • UX strategy and research • information architecture • prototyping and interaction design • design–engineering alignment I’ve worked across enterprise SaaS, AI/data platforms, public sector technology, industrial software, and life sciences often helping teams move from ambiguous product ideas to validated workflows, prototypes, and scalable design patterns. I’m especially interested in teams building complex products where clarity, trust, usability, and cross-functional collaboration matter. Open to full-time, contract, and consulting opportunities in product design, AI experience design, UX strategy, and systems-level design work. #OpenToWork #ProductDesign #UXDesign #AIUX #UXStrategy #DesignLeadership #Hiring

Are you really wearing a t-shirt on a business trip? Yes! IREX ers are DOERS, and leading positive change is a guiding principle of the Community Engagement Exchange ( CEE Program ). This week, I’m visiting CEE fellows, hosts, coaches, and a program mentor in Bozeman, Montana where our network is thriving! As soon as I deplane and grab my luggage, I’m headed straight to volunteer at a community cleanup event the fellows organized for CEE’s Day of Service. We are contributing to local nonprofit HRDC ’s mission to ensure poverty has no impact because opportunities and quality of life are afforded to everyone. While much of leadership is being authentic, adaptive, and motivational, none of that matters if we don’t get out of our officewear, get our hands dirty, and actually put in the work. From Cleveland to Phoenix and Lincoln to New Orleans, CEE fellows across the country are spending their weekends giving back to their host communities and leaving them even better than they found them. Let’s get to work! Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the U.S. Department of State

I need to print these stickers and give them away: AI – Use it to challenge your thinking, not replace it.

Far from Azerbaijan now, but I grew up when this conflict started 40 years ago. We saw it unfold in front of us. Stories like this land differently, especially when they come from someone you know. I can’t wait to see this documentary.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate! Every year, for me, this is a way to connect with my predecessors—to do what my grandparents taught me and, as we say in our Easter prayers, “learn to share bread and love with each other.”

Yesterday I spent time with our programs teams walking through real operational workflows. Not AI use cases. Not strategy slides. Just how the work actually gets done. What stood out was not a lack of effort or discipline. Quite the opposite. People have built thoughtful, resilient ways to get work done with the tools, instructions, and process clarity they have. But that also surfaced an important lesson: A process is not ready for AI just because it exists. When people are re-entering data, keeping side trackers, checking outputs manually, and carrying exceptions in their heads, that usually means the process is still being held together by human judgment and repetition. That is not a criticism of the people doing the work. In organizations like ours, the work often succeeds because people care enough to compensate for what the process or system does not yet do well. But it does mean something important for the future. As we improve processes, we should do it with AI in mind. That means: Clearer ownership Clearer rules Fewer unofficial workarounds Better-defined sources of truth Less reliance on memory, heroics, and “just in case” controls Otherwise, AI will automate pieces of the work, but not really change how the work operates. The takeaway: before we ask what AI can do for a process, we should ask whether the process is structured in a way that anything other than a human can trust and follow it. Where are you seeing people compensate for process gaps in your organization? #AI #ProcessImprovement #DataGovernance #OperationalExcellence #ChangeManagement #nonprofitmanagement Fernando Ferreyra Josh Powell