BCom alum Japman Bajaj and young leaders worldwide strive for impact

Sprott alumnus Japman Bajaj, BCom/08, recently travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to meet with other young community leaders from around the world who are making a difference in their communities. Japman represented Calgary at the Annual Curators Meeting of the Global Shapers Community, which took place August 21 to 25.

The Global Shapers Community is worldwide network of hubs, driven by high potential and accomplished young professionals between the ages of 20 and 30, who want to make a positive impact to their communities. Affiliated with the World Economic Forum, the Global Shapers Community was launched in 2011 and has grown rapidly to more than 350 hubs worldwide and more than 4,000 members, called shapers.

Each year, all of the hub leaders (curators) from around the world are invited to Geneva to come together and discuss what they can do to help grow the community further. The event provides a forum for curators to share information and best practices on how to attract funding, recruit and retain shapers, start and execute projects, and more. They also benefit from the advice of representatives from World Economic Forum and external business leaders.

In addition, the group looks at a global theme that is announced at the start of the meeting.

“Our job as curators is not only to focus on our local communities, but also to help achieve large scale change,” said Japman. “There are periods of time devoted to just that, the question being how can we leverage the brain power, connections and accomplishments in the room and do something very meaningful and very positive.”

Japman became involved in Global Shapers in 2012 while living in Ottawa. He was nominated by two shapers to join the Ottawa hub, which he helped grow from four to eight shapers. Coincidentally, the curator, or lead, of the Ottawa hub is also a Carleton grad.

When he moved to Calgary in January 2013, he began looking into starting a hub there. He was soon joined by a fellow shaper from Toronto and together they developed the Calgary hub.

Each hub sets their own priorities and projects based on the needs of their community.

Japman said that in Calgary they are fortunate to have access to Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who is affiliated with World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. They sat down with the mayor, Calgary Economic Development, Calgary Poverty Reduction Initiative, and other high level organizations to narrow down the top priorities for Calgary.

While some Global Shaper hubs choose to focus on grass roots initiatives, the team in Calgary chose a different approach.

“We’re focusing on high impact initiatives at a policy level and how we are going to dramatically change the way we think about these things,” said Japman. “So we built a team around the best people that were right for the goals we wanted to hit.”

When asked what drew him to the Global Shaper Community, Japman said the opportunity to be involved in something impactful.

“When I was at Sprott, I was involved with SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise, now called Enactus) and that changed my entire mindset of what I wanted to do with my life,” said Japman. “I didn’t realize the impact I could have as an individual. SIFE gave me the confidence and realization that I could do more.”

Admittedly, he knew little about Global Shapers when he was nominated.

“I knew that (World Economic Forum) brought business leaders together to attack social issues,” he said. “I really like that spirit of business, where business can be good and be used for the good of community and betterment of society, and not all about shareholder profit.”

He adds that initially he felt being able to say you are affiliated with World Economic Forum as a 25 year-old is a really cool thing. But when he started working with people and saw the impact that a group of high caliber people can accomplish, it kept him motivated to stay involved.

To learn more about the Global Shapers Community, visit globalshapers.org.