Fletcher news roundup

Some odds and ends of interest to share today, readers. This is the time of year when Fletcher students tend to win things, so we’ll start with some happy updates in that vein.

First up, the D-Prize Poverty Solutions Venture Competition. This annual award funds a social enterprise proposal up to $20,000, and this year goes to MIB students Nikita Vardiparti and Sushant Swami. Their venture Raitagyana (“knowledge for farmers” in Kannada) will provide agricultural training and resources to smallholder farmers in Southwestern India. They will pilot their program with 40-50 farmers in the coming months.

Next, the results of Turner Impact Portfolio Challenge (TIPC) hosted by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania & Bank of America. Earlier in April, Fletcher’s winning team took 1st place in this prestigious competition beating out 3 other finalists:  UCLA, University of Chicago, and Boston University.  To take the top prize, the Fletcher student team worked on a semester-long project to construct a multi-asset portfolio for a university endowment with a mandate to embed impact into overall strategic asset allocation. The team designed a winning strategy to balance the client’s impact, financial, risk and liquidity goals while managing the complexities of execution and reporting.

Finally, a new book from our alumni community. Readers might know David Grann (F92) for The Lost City of Z or Killers of the Flower Moon, among other best-selling titles. His latest, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder has just been published. The book recounts the early-18th century wreck of the titular vessel around Cape Horn, and is sure to captivate fans of his prior accounts of people fighting for survival in extreme circumstances.