QS Leadership Scholarship: 2014's Winner

The QS Leadership Scholarship, worth up to US$10,000 in tuition fees, is awarded annually to a candidate who has demonstrated leadership skills and a commitment to making a positive difference to a community. This year’s winner is Colombian Juan Manuel Lozano Rodríguez, who will use the award to help fund a Masters of Law (LLM) program at New York University (NYU).

It seems especially appropriate that Juan Manuel is benefitting from this funding assistance, as he himself contributed to the social development of his country by establishing a scholarships scheme called Sueño Ser (“dream to be”), to help talented Colombian students continue their studies at undergraduate level and overseas. He’s also put his leadership skills to use in various campaigning roles; as a spokesperson for the student community; and during the floods of 2010 and 2011, when he helped create a network of educational institutions, making it possible for many young people to return to school more quickly.

Using leadership skills to help others

Having been involved in so many initiatives focused on improving the lives of others, Juan Manuel says he’s become accustomed to the warm feeling that comes from helping someone else. But on this occasion, he was happy to be on the receiving end of the good news about the QS Leadership Scholarship. “After all the efforts to help others, in this moment – when I asked for a helpful hand to support my personal dreams – I not only received an award, I received a supportive message to continue with my work. That day, I received a message saying that I am not alone; there is also a community which believes in the importance of leadership skills to promote effective, not theoretical, social awareness.”

Following completion a Master in Administrative Law at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Juan Manuel currently lectures in law and political management, and has gained hands-on experience in the political sector as a campaign manager. He’s also the legal and public affairs director for the first South American-based platform of crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and gamification for entrepreneurship.

With such a diverse and packed résumé to date, Juan Manuel was understandably keen to find an LLM program that would be flexible and interdisciplinary, providing scope to explore all his intersecting interests; he found this in the program at New York University, and the Leadership Scholarship will help cover the course fees. “I hope to expand my knowledge of law as a support for other disciplines, and also hone my managerial skills through elective courses in management and government, as well as the principles of social development theory,” he says.

Passionate about social development

Juan Manuel is so passionate about social development that it’s surprising to hear his childhood dream was actually to become an astronaut – an ambition most people found unusual at the time. “For a generation who lived through the violence of the 1980s in Colombia, that answer was always closely tied to professions associated directly or indirectly with the conflict. My friends answered that they wanted to be soldiers, firefighters, police officers or other heroic professions.” He suggests that for him the idea of being an astronaut represented a more modern kind of hero, and the chance to explore “a world where boundaries simply don’t exist.”

One thing he did understand from a young age was the importance of applying leadership skills in order to help expand access to education. “My parents always told me to be aware of how lucky I was in a society in which only 35% of high school graduates reach the beginning of higher education, and how a minimal percentage of them complete the academic cycle. Maybe this is the main reason why I was so obsessed with the idea of creating scholarships and education spaces.”

After completing his Masters of Law at New York University with the help of the QS Leadership Scholarship, Juan Manuel has very clear ambitions. “Equipped with the training the LLM offers, I want to return to Colombia as a corporate social responsibility coordinator who will lead social responsibility schemes, from either the public or private sector, to later become an electoral candidate for the regional elections and in the long term run for the Colombian presidential chair.” More broadly, his goal is to “contribute to building public faith in social institutions as a tool for the Colombian post-conflict transition which is currently taking place.” In short, this is definitely one grad school student to keep an eye on.

Image credit (street in Bogota): javarman / Shutterstock.com