Empowered to empower
In this episode of Imagine A World, a podcast by Knight-Hennessy Scholars, Sydney Hunt ('23 cohort) and Ashley Yeh ('24 cohort) speak with Khushi Malde ('24 cohort) about her hopes for education to spark curiosity, build resilience, and empower students to innovate, create, and lead for global responsibility.
Khushi shares how growing up and attending high school in Kenya and then pursuing an undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley made her realize the gap in opportunities that she had compared to her peers—and how doing work to bridge those gaps brings her joy. She talks about founding a nonprofit that brings entrepreneurship education to high school students across Sub-Saharan Africa and shares insights into her current work at Stanford, where she's building tools that help students explore potential career paths through hands-on, immersive learning.
Resources
Guest
Khushi Malde (2024 cohort), from Nairobi, Kenya, is pursuing a master’s degree in learning, design, and technology at Stanford Graduate School of Education. She graduated from the University of California (UC), Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in data science and business administration. Khushi aspires to build edtech tools and programs that promote experiential learning in education environments and also bridge the opportunity gap that exists between the developed and developing worlds. She founded a nonprofit, Technology and Entrepreneurship Ladder, through which she provides entrepreneurship education opportunities to students in Kenya.
Since graduating from UC Berkeley, she has been leading the global growth team at Lumiere Education, providing research opportunities to high school students from more than 60 countries. She is a recipient of the Education 2.0 Outstanding Leadership Award, UC Berkeley Campus SPOT Award, and the Cal Alumni Leadership Award.
Imagine A World team
Imagine A World's theme music was composed and recorded by Taylor Goss (2021 cohort). The podcast was originally conceived and led by Briana Mullen (2020 cohort), Taylor Goss, and Willie Thompson (2022 cohort), along with Daniel Gajardo (2020 cohort) and Jordan Conger (2020 cohort).
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
Full transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.
Khushi Malde:
In that sense, there was an abundance of opportunities, and most of the time it was just like they have seen someone do that, so they feel like they can do that. So what I define as the gap is not necessarily the gap of how much you can achieve or what you can do, but it's more so the gap of being able to actually see someone from the place that you came from actually doing that, because if you've seen someone do that or you have an opportunity to experience that, then you feel more confident of being able to do it. But until then, it's just something in the textbook.
My name is Khushi Malde. I am doing the master's in learning design and technology, followed by the MBA, and I'm in the 2024 Knight-Hennessy Cohort. I imagine a world where education is not just about acquiring knowledge, but it is about sparking curiosity, building resilience, and empowering students to innovate, create, and lead for global responsibility.
Sydney Hunt:
Welcome to the Imagine A World podcast from Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We are here to give you a glimpse into the Knight-Hennessy Scholar community of graduate students, spanning all seven Stanford schools, including business, education, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, and sustainability. In each episode, we talk with scholars about the world they imagine and what they are doing to bring it to life.
In this episode, we sit down with Khushi Malde, a passionate advocate for access to education and a rising star in the EdTech world. Khushi, who grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, is a member of the 2024 Knight-Hennessy Scholars Cohort. She has dedicated her life to ensuring that every student, regardless of their location, has access to high-quality experiential learning. We'll delve into Khushi's journey, from her early experiences with education in Kenya to her undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley, where she witnessed firsthand the disparities in educational opportunities. Hear how she chose to pursue a career path in the non-profit sector, focusing on empowering students in Africa through entrepreneurship education. Khushi's story is one of dedication, innovation, and a deep commitment to social impact. Join us as we explore her work-building tools that help high school students discover their passions and connect them to meaningful career paths. This is a conversation you won't want to miss.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Imagine A World. My name is Sydney Hunt, and I'm really excited to be one of your co-hosts today. I am a member of the 2023 Knight-Hennessy Scholars Cohort, and I'm doing a PhD in electrical engineering.
Ashley Yeh:
And I am your co-host, Ashley. I'm a member of the 2024 Knight-Hennessy Cohort and currently studying neuroscience. And also super excited to be here.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, I'm really pumped. It's also my first episode with Ashley, so I can't wait for this one.
Ashley Yeh:
I've been waiting for this moment.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, I know, waiting all year. So, Ashley, who are we talking to today?
Ashley Yeh:
So today we're going to be talking to Khushi, and we're going to learn a lot about her background growing up in Kenya and her work in education. And, yeah, I'm just really excited to have you here, and I think I've heard a lot in our conversation earlier, and I'd love to hear more.
Before we talk about the world you imagine, let's talk about the world you were born into and have experienced so far. Where are you from? And what was your journey here?
Khushi Malde:
Sure. Yeah, thank you for having me on the podcast, and, yeah, happy to share. So in terms of what brought me to Stanford, I came to Stanford to get my master's in learning design technology, specifically from the Graduate School of Education. And a lot of this was just from my experience of how I experienced education changing my life, the life of the community around me, and thinking about how I could use education to empower students across the globe. So prior to coming to Stanford, I did my undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. And prior to that, I grew up in Kenya, was born and raised there, went to a local high school, nothing fancy. And when I came to Berkeley, I just realized such a big gap in terms of the opportunities I had-
Ashley Yeh:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
Growing up in Kenya versus those that a lot of my peers had. And so in the process, studied data science, business, worked in tech for a bit, but then realized that what really brought me joy was bridging these gaps that exist in terms of education opportunities, because being a first-generation student, I saw that education just changed the trajectory, not just for me, but for my family as well. So then I started a nonprofit focused on providing entrepreneurship education to high school students in Sub-Saharan Africa, found it very difficult to scale a nonprofit.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
So then my next task was to figure out how do you create impact, but also make that sustainable? So joined a for-profit education company and led their growth team, so was doing a lot on the business side of things, and quickly realized that if you're in the for-profit space, especially on the growth side of things-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
You do forget about impact, because you are running for just the numbers, the enrollment numbers. So I wanted to kind of bridge the two, where I'm like learning is important. I've seen a lot of students just learn so much more with experiential education and are able to really find what they're passionate about, what they're interested in, and build meaningful careers around that. But how do we make that sustainable? How do we ensure that every student, no matter their background, no matter which country they are from, are getting access to those high-quality education opportunities? So that's what led me to the learning design technology program here at Stanford. And specifically this program is designed around you creating a capstone project, so I found it to be a very practical program for me to test out my ideas, get a lot of feedback from learning scientists, make sure that my solution is grounded in the research of learning science, as well as then think about how do you scale it. So that's kind of where the MBA comes in, thinking about, yes, I have ideas on what would help bridge these gaps, but how do we ensure that they are sustainable?
Sydney Hunt:
Sure. Yeah, that's a beautiful story. I love to hear how you take your own experiences and use it to empower others. You talk a lot about the word gap specifically, whether that means your personal experience of when you went to Berkeley or talking about trying to bridge that gap for all students. How do you define gap? And was there maybe a turning point experience when you were an undergrad that made you realize, oh wow, education access is super different for people all across the world?
Khushi Malde:
I think I'll take the latter part of the question first, that was there a trigger point for me? So when I started my undergraduate degree at Berkeley, it was the very first time I stepped foot in the United States.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Khushi Malde:
So I had never visited before.
Sydney Hunt:
It's a long flight.
Khushi Malde:
It was a long flight. And very nervous. The first night in my dorm room while I'm speaking to my two roommates, we're just having a casual conversation of where we came from, what we did, et cetera, and one of them shares that, yeah, throughout high school, she was doing research for four years with-
Sydney Hunt:
Oh, wow.
Khushi Malde:
A Stanford professor and had-
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my goodness.
Khushi Malde:
Conversations-
Ashley Yeh:
Four years in high school. Wow.
Khushi Malde:
In the field of medicine.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I never thought that. For me, research was like, oh, when you're getting your PhD or beyond. It's not even something that I would think an undergraduate would do. And then the other roommate shares that she built a startup and just sold it-
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
For a million dollars.
Sydney Hunt:
In high school?
Khushi Malde:
In high school.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh.
Wow.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh my gosh. I was not doing that in high school.
Sydney Hunt:
No, me neither. Not at all.
Khushi Malde:
And so when it was my turn to share what did I do in high school-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
I was like, "Nothing." I don't know how to match up to that.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
But then it was also for me to realize that the opportunities I had were things like doing some community service or doing Model UN or being the leader in school, like student council, et cetera. The opportunities for students growing up, especially here in the Bay Area were unlimited almost-
Sydney Hunt:
Absolutely.
Khushi Malde:
In that sense. There was an abundance of opportunities, and most of the time it was just like they have seen someone do that, so they feel like they can do that. So what I define as the gap is not necessarily the gap of how much you can achieve or what you can do, but it's more so the gap of being able to actually see someone from the place that you came from actually doing that, because if you've seen someone do that or you have an opportunity to experience that, then you feel more confident of being able to do it.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
But until then, it's just something in the textbook.
Sydney Hunt:
Exactly. Exactly.
Khushi Malde:
And so that's kind of how I define gaps, where I'm like it's not that growing up in Kenya I wouldn't have been able to potentially reach out to a university in Kenya and get a research assistantship position. I just didn't know that that's something you can do. That's kind of how I define the gap.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, there's so much value and having mentors and people you look up to who do amazing things, and then you realize that you're able to do it as well, or your own peers even.
Khushi Malde:
Exactly.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, I completely understand that.
Sydney Hunt:
It's a very powerful message that I very much agree with. My Imagine A World statement was actually very similar. It was seeing someone who looks like you doing what you would love to do. And so I'm just beaming with excitement and happiness that, yeah, you also agree with this and you're not only talking the talk. You're walking the walk. So I guess next we could transition a little bit into why did you choose specifically data science and business? I think, like you mentioned, there's a lot of opportunities being in the Bay. Berkeley and Stanford are very close to each other. I'm curious who you vote for on the game now, which one has your heart? But, yeah, there's so many different majors, and I'm not sure if Berkeley had an entrepreneurship subsection or et cetera, but what got you to data science and business? Was that what you intended to do when you went into Berkeley? And how impactful was that on, I guess, where you got to today?
Khushi Malde:
Yeah. To answer your question of who do I support, whenever people ask me that, I'm like, I think I'm my own enemy. So we'll keep it at that.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
But, yeah, so I did not intend to study data science. I came into Berkeley as an applied mathematics major, and the whole reason I even picked studying in the US was I was like I don't know what I want to major in. And US was the only country that gave me the flexibility of being able to explore. And the reason I picked mathematics was that was my favorite subject in high school, so I was like that's an easy checkbox for me to just be like, oh, I like doing math, and I'll start off there. But when I got to Berkeley and took a few mathematics courses, I just realized that the higher up you go in math, it becomes very theoretical. And I enjoyed more of the application part of things, which were more of the statistics or how mathematics is applied in the world. So that's when one of my friends told me that I should try out data science, but that was also very intimidating for me because I had not seen a line of code or written-
Ashley Yeh:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
A line of code before I came to Berkeley. So I was like, okay, taking an introductory computer science data science course, I didn't know if I was going to be able to do that. Coding just felt intimidating. Building just felt intimidating. But after I took the first data science course... And I think the professor had a lot to do in this, the way she delivered the course... I just fell in love with just the application part of how I was still using a lot of the fundamentals of math, but using them in a way that just felt very applicable to the world. Our first project was analyzing weather trends, and then we were analyzing, I think it was like a basketball project or something. So it just felt like I was like, oh, this is a skill that I could use.
And then the way business came to be added was at Berkeley, getting into the Haas School of Business is a competitive process once you are at Berkeley. They've changed it since now you can apply directly into the business school. So while everyone was applying, I was like, okay, I have the prerequisites.
Ashley Yeh:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
I could put in an application. I didn't know whether I would want to do the business degree or not, but just put in an application. Got in, and as I reflected on whether I would want to do the business degree or not, I think for me it was more so just a decision of it feels like a practical degree, so I'm just going to do it. However, in the process of doing these degrees, I discovered the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship at Berkeley and did the entrepreneurship certification while I was there, and that became a lot of my community and realize that that was where I was thriving in terms of coming up with new ideas, building them, taking them to market. And I think this also just comes from family and genes as well.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
My dad's an entrepreneur.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh, nice.
Khushi Malde:
He moved from India to Kenya at the age of 18. Didn't have the funds to pursue a higher education, so started a business and grew that, et cetera. So I had seen that happen in the family, so it felt like, oh, I could build something. And then in the process I also, during my sophomore and my junior year... Like you mentioned that the Bay Area has infinite opportunities, so being right close to Silicon Valley, being close to the big tech scene, it was very much looked upon, like get a software engineering internship at a big tech company. And I was fortunate enough to get an internship at Salesforce. Worked there for two summers, but quickly realized that that was something I did not enjoy.
Ashley Yeh:
Why?
Khushi Malde:
Why? Yeah, many people ask me the why. And I think it was, firstly, both the internships were during the pandemic, so I was working virtually. And that really had me reflect on like I do prefer having a lot of people connection and being in roles that I'm speaking to people, that I'm part of communities, that I can see myself making a tangible impact. Both my internships I learned a ton of engineering-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
But I was sitting for hours just behind the screen, fixing a button or doing some kind of code, et cetera, and that just didn't feel fulfilling. And so during that time, I started my nonprofit because I was like I'm not fulfilled at this internship. I need to do something else. That was the main reason that I realized that even though I may have the technical skills to pursue a role in engineering, I just don't see myself doing that because I am someone who does prefer to be in communities, to be around people, be creating that more of a tangible impact that I can see.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, yeah. That makes complete sense. I have some friends who work at Salesforce, so it's just fun seeing all the different perspectives.
Khushi Malde:
Yeah, my college best friend works at Salesforce. We were both interning at the same time. Could've been cool to work together, but, yeah, different trajectories.
Ashley Yeh:
A very popular office location. Yeah, you mentioned that you ended up preferring nonprofit work. And I know you worked in Africa, so I was wondering what led you to Africa? What led you to the nonprofit work there, as opposed to Salesforce, I guess? Two very different environments.
Khushi Malde:
Very, very different environments. So the way I got into building the nonprofit was, firstly, I was not feeling fulfilled at Salesforce, so I felt the need of doing something else. And as I was just reflecting... I guess all of us were in reflection mode during the pandemic. So as I was-
Sydney Hunt:
Yes.
Khushi Malde:
As I was in that phase, I was like, okay, what do I want to do in life? What do I want to build? What do I want to create? And that's when I realized that I just loved mentoring. And this was when I realized that big gap that I faced while just moving to the US. So that's when I started thinking about how can I bridge this gap of the lack of opportunities that I faced in Kenya versus what's available here? And I was very tapped into the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
Had done a lot of entrepreneurship boot camps, at the same time, had TAed and mentored for several courses at Berkeley. So I knew that the mentorship part and the teaching part was something that I was excited by. So I just came up with an idea where I was like you know what I can start with is I have a lot of friends who are entrepreneurs, building things here, lots of professors who are in the space. I could just create a workshop series and show people back home that this is possible. Did a little Facebook message. I think I was nervous to start it on my own-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
So I was like, oh, getting support would be nice. Did a little Facebook message on the Berkeley chat and met my co-founder for-
Sydney Hunt:
Oh, wow. Nice.
Khushi Malde:
The nonprofit, Megan, and we started that together. We started it off as a workshop series where we had eight workshops where I basically got a lot of my friends and mentors to lead 45-minute workshops with students in Kenya. That was an easy market for me to tap into because I had did schooling there. So I just had to reach out to my high school and other high schools that I knew around. And we saw that the first workshop was attended by like 250 students. That increased to like 500 students.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh.
Khushi Malde:
And we're like-
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
Oh, this is cool. We're able to reach a lot of students. And I was like there is something here that we could expand upon. And then that led to a lot of iteration. We started with private schools, realized that we're not really bridging the gap by going to private schools. Let's go to public schools. Then we also ran a full entrepreneurship bootcamp with students from the slums in Kenya and in the process just realized how important the whole aspect of seeing someone from your community do something is important versus just seeing an entrepreneur in America do something. So pivoted the program a lot. The non-profit still exists. We do run entrepreneurship boot camps for high school and college-level students or students coming from very low-income backgrounds in Sub-Saharan Africa. So we've expanded to Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa. So it's expanded as well, but what we do now is instead of the mentors being the mentors I had at Berkeley, they're actually people who came from the same environment as the students-
Ashley Yeh:
That's so cool.
Khushi Malde:
So that the students are able to relate.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
We've had students build their little ventures like packing honey or a beauty business or something or the other. It's been an interesting journey to do that. But all of this has been primarily just voluntary work, so we haven't necessarily been able to scale it to a larger scale or anything.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Ashley Yeh:
I think that's a pretty large scale to me, honestly.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, that's a huge scale. Starting out with 500 students, that's quite impressive. And now you're in so many different countries. Like you mentioned, you're getting to the point where now you can even have a rotation of mentors depending on where people are from. That's really, really incredible, and I hope you're very proud of that. I'm curious what you talked about, originally the workshops that you set up and used the phrase entrepreneurship, or, yeah, I think workshop. What does that mean? How do you fit all these opportunities, places you can go, things you can do into 45 minutes? What was your process like narrowing that down and also narrowing it down into those eight topics?
Khushi Malde:
The way I narrowed it down to the eight topics was I had taken go an entrepreneurship boot camp at Berkeley, which was over a week, and each day focused on a different topic area. And basically I picked those topics to condense them into little 45-minute to one-hour sessions. So the topics included things like ideation, women in entrepreneurship, marketing, product dev. There was funding, so whether that's a venture, whether that's bootstrapping, what that would look like. And the way we fit it in was primarily just getting people working in these spaces or the people that I knew that are involved in these spaces to comment. The first 20 minutes, they would share their story and where they are at, and then we would just make it a Q&A where, as a moderator, I would start with a few questions, and then students would just ask their questions that they had.
So it wasn't very hands-on. It wasn't like mentoring students one-on-one. So, yes, we had like 500 students in those workshops, but it was more of just like an interview with an expert. And then when we switched to the bootcamp model where now the boot camps are six months long-
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh. Whoa. That's amazing.
Khushi Malde:
So we only run one each year, and we only select about eight to 10 students. So it's a more personalized approach to it. While I'm in grad school, have taken a little bit of a pause-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
But now it's more so like, okay, we do still have these same topics and workshops happening through the six months, but it is also very much focused on you've done the workshop on ideation. Now the next two weeks you're actually going to ideate. You're actually going to think about what you want to build, identify the problem, et cetera. We've done a workshop on funding. Okay, you're going to go out to your community. You are going to reach out to investors. And we do have now a network where we're able to do little seed funding, very minimal, but that is kind of giving them a little bit of a start. So I think in the process I realized that, yes, you can just listen to someone. That's cool. You get exposed to things, but it's so important to immerse yourself in it. And I think that has been really cool to see students actually spend six months.
And we ended up with a short internship, like a one-month internship where we do have startups around the world that want students to do a little project for them. And that is a great way for many of these students who've just not seen how to build a business to be at an early stage startup and be like, oh, this is how someone builds a business. So that's the structure of the nonprofit, and I think that's where I talk about scale. Right now, we're only able to serve a few students per year. And one thing the Stanford program has really taught me is how do I change that model and use technology that we have now to make it accessible to thousands of students as well?
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, I guess I was just about to ask, following up on what you said, now that you're at Stanford, what are your biggest, wildest dreams for what you can do with that? Or are you kind of going in a different direction? Or you want to build more? Or if you could dream up your ideal scenario for what this could be, what would it be?
Khushi Malde:
I'm not 100% sure weather I'll still continue the nonprofit model or not, but basically the work that I'm doing at Stanford is to help students, no matter their background or where they come from, explore their potential career pathways in a very experiential way. And the way we're doing this is building. So I'm working with a colleague from the Graduate School of Education, Marla, and we are building a tool that has simulations of what... There's a lot of prediction that we are doing. Like what would careers look like in five to 10 years, given how rapidly technology is changing, all the things that are happening in the world?
Ashley Yeh:
Must be hard to predict.
Sydney Hunt:
That's a hard prediction.
Khushi Malde:
It's very difficult. It's very difficult to predict. But then we create experiences around that such that the student goes onto this platform and in a simulation is experiencing what this career could feel like for them and see if they see themselves there. So what just my work with the nonprofit taught me is that the biggest thing is put the student in the situation to do something, and they'll be able to tell themselves if that's for them or not. But how can we scale that to ensure that... Many times students getting into college, they really don't know what they want to do. You've probably noticed with the high school just checkbox mentality. I want to go to this college. I'm going to do these 10 different things, and then we'll figure it out. But for students who do have the clarity of like, oh, this is what I'm passionate about, this is what I'm interested in, it's just a way more authentic them. They're just way more excited by life and find joy in life.
So that's the goal there, where can we expose students early on to experience a career in finance, a career in branding and marketing, a career in law, a career in medicine through a simulation-
Ashley Yeh:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
Where they get hands-on with it and are like, oh, okay, I could see myself here. I do enjoy this, or I see myself being able to do this, but I don't see myself making a career out of that. And just getting that clarity early on just accelerates the growth for a student. So that's the project I'm working on now. So definitely taking up a lot of elements of things that I learned from my nonprofit, but rather than just focusing on entrepreneurship, making it more broader to ensure students are able to explore.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, I love that. I'm curious what you mean by simulation. Is it like if I'm wanting to think about maybe being a doctor, does that mean we see an OR, or we see... Yeah, what is that? If I was a student and I got to experience this... This sounds so cool... what would I be doing?
Khushi Malde:
For sure. So I'm still thinking about the medicine experience and how that would look like, but I'll share one that we built out, which is in the field of branding and marketing. And so the way it is is that we have the student be a brand manager for their favorite celebrity. So they get to pick who they want to be a brand manager for, and then they go through different tasks in the process. So tasks include things like create a five-year social media, not a five-year, like a five-week social media strategy. Use Canva to create a social media post. So that's all design. So there's strategy. Then there's design. Then there is PR as well, like, oh, your celebrity said something. Now you need to back them up or you need to apologize. How are you going to do that? How are you going to write that apology? So students are able to do these different tasks. So we focus them on skills. So, yes, we have a scenario that is built, which is like, oh, you're the brand manager for your favorite celebrity. And then there are different skills that we are focusing on, research, writing, design, strategy.
And after each skill, the students reflect on what they liked and what they didn't like in that particular task. And then we're using artificial intelligence to analyze those reflections and give students a summary of like, oh, this is what you like. This is what you didn't like. Maybe consider doing these experiences. Or if they've done several experiences in the platform, then it is, given all of this, you love doing research and writing, so maybe consider these careers. These could be your post-secondary pathways. A lot of students choose not to go to college, and that is totally okay, but they need to know what are their options beyond high school. It's not limited by what college you go to. That's not the case. There's so many certifications. There's a lot of vocational school. You can go ahead and build your business right out of high school. So giving them that kind of view of where they could be as well. So that's kind of the whole, I would say, the cycle in the platform.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow. That's a great way to narrow down everything that you could be in life. I feel like I would've benefited greatly from that. It actually reminds me when I was in Taiwan as a child, there was something called baby boss. It was for children, and it was like this giant room that you would go to, and you could decide that day if you wanted to be a scientist, an astronaut, a business person, whatever. And then they would suit you up in whatever gear they wear, and then you would do a little-
Khushi Malde:
That's so cute.
Ashley Yeh:
Thing. And it's just for kids, but I still remember it to this day. So I feel like even that left an impact on me, so what you're doing sounds like 10 times better.
Khushi Malde:
I hope that that's how it turns out. But, yeah, so that's the vision. We've seen a lot of psychometric tests, and they'll be like, this is the career that you should do. But then you're just blocking off the student from thinking about other possibilities. So that's not the goal. The goal is explore, experience, and have at least an initial pathway to follow. Even from my journey, I started off with math and ended up in education and entrepreneurship. And I feel like a lot of you probably relate that the journey is not linear. So it's just about, okay, at least give a touchpoint of post-high school, what are you doing? And then we know that things are going to change beyond that, and it's okay.
Ashley Yeh:
Right. I love those two words you said, explore and experience. Those are, I think, yeah, super powerful and super true. And it's very clear where your Imagine A World statement is coming from, from your exploration and your experiences. I guess the other experience, though, I want to talk about is Knight-Hennessy and the reason that the three of us met. So how has that been? What is the exploration and/or experiences you've had here in your program? How has it added to your graduate experience? And also why were you even interested in applying to Knight-Hennessy?
Khushi Malde:
Yeah, so very grateful for the opportunity to be part of the Knight-Hennessy community. And I think it has just accelerated what I would be able to do without having this community. Yes, the funding is phenomenal, and being able to pursue a graduate degree without having to worry too much of the finance has been a blessing, but beyond that, I think the beauty about the Knight-Hennessy Community is bringing scholars from all different backgrounds together. So, yes, I'm in education, but literally the tool I'm building requires me to be speaking with people and experts in very many different fields. And there's no way that I can, as someone who studied data science, business, entrepreneurship and education, there's no way I'm going to be able to teach someone what a career in medicine or what a career as an environmental scientist looks like. But being in a community like Knight-Hennessy, I can very easily be like, oh, I can reach out to this person and get their opinion on what this experience should look like.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
So there's that aspect where it's like you're bringing scholars from all different schools at Stanford who are doing really cool work, and everyone's able to collaborate on the different work that they're doing and I guess just accelerate everything for one another. And then I think the other beauty of just this diverse community is while I'm at the Graduate School of Education, whatever I'm building, whatever I'm doing may make sense to everyone around me, but then when I come to Denning House and share that over lunch with other scholars, I get like 10,000 questions on, oh, how does this work? Or How does this work? And that just helps me refine how I'm thinking about impact and bringing in a very multidisciplinary approach to it. So I guess that's the benefit of having such a diverse community of brilliant people doing brilliant things across all the schools at Stanford.
And then beyond that is Stanford is a great community, but when you're in graduate school, sometimes it can become a bubble where you're just in your department and those are your friends, and now have friends from all different schools. And it just feels really nice to come to Denning and detach a bit from everything that's happening in one department and just learn from one another. Everyone has come from such a unique background, have unique stories, and that has been my favorite part. Storytelling has been my favorite part.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, do you want to say what Storytelling is, for the listeners who don't know about it?
Khushi Malde:
Yeah, I can definitely explain. So Storytelling is for first-year scholars. It's like a mandatory activity that you're engaging in where the first quarter you're coming in. And it's led by Dan and Lisa. And you're just sharing stories on different topics about yourself, experiences you've had, and you just get to connect with one another on such a deeper level. And then the next two quarters, which is the winter and the spring quarters, you get the opportunity of sharing a much longer story, five minutes long, to everyone. And many people share very vulnerable stories. It becomes such a safe space to really share where you're coming from, what your opinion about different things is, how different experiences have shaped your life. And I think it just ties back into every experience is going to shape the way you view the world. So it's important to have those experiences. And sometimes you don't have them yourself, but you can have them, I guess, as a third party by just hearing someone's story. So that has helped me connect with the scholars much deeper. And I guess one of my highlights of Knight-Hennessy would be Immersion Weekend.
Sydney Hunt:
Well, I wonder if that's a hot take because-
Khushi Malde:
No hot take.
Sydney Hunt:
Maybe some people are very stressed during-
Ashley Yeh:
Aside from the stress-
Khushi Malde:
Aside from the stress.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, Immersion Weekend is the finalist weekend for the Knight-Hennessy application. So that's when you're interviewing for context.
Khushi Malde:
Exactly. But, yeah, here in person at Stanford, and that was after having gone into the work-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
World, coming back into a school setting and with a group of these finalists, I feel like what happened was that was the very first time I felt that I was in a room where every single person enjoys and loves what they do, which is rare to find. In the two years of working for the for-profit, I had been to probably about eight or nine conferences, and that wasn't the case in those situations. So, yeah, and I'm still really good friends with people that did not make it to Knight-Hennessy,-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
And it's just a great community to be around. So I think that's why I like Immersion Weekend was a highlight. I know it's a hot take, but-
Sydney Hunt:
No, that's great. I'm glad to hear. Yeah, I think Immersion Weekend is a very special time. Yeah.
Ashley Yeh:
I agree. I think, like what you said, it's the first time you meet so many people who do so many cool things in so many different fields. I think that was what really hit for me. I was so used to my own field and what I know within science, and learning about the MBAs and the law students and all that they want to do is absolutely mind-blowing for me. And then to have that be the beginning and then coming here and having that continue throughout this entire year basically has been so cool.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, it's really amazing. Absolutely. I guess on the topic of KH application, one question we do ask all the people we interview is... You can choose one... so, one, either advice for applicants, or something that you wish you would've known before you applied that you found out once you actually got here.
Khushi Malde:
Yeah. So I think the advice that I'll give for applicants is that many times when you're doing a college application or a scholarship application, you think that there's a formula to follow. You think that you have to present yourself in a particular way. But one thing that I really felt with the Knight-Hennessy application and also chatting with a lot of other scholars was really just share who you are. It doesn't have to meet a particular criteria or a particular way of presenting yourself. Just be very authentic. Share exactly what you've done. Share exactly the background you come from and how your experiences have changed the way you view the world, because I think if we have 100 scholars in a particular cohort, every single scholar has a very different viewpoint-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
Of the world, and that is influenced by their experiences. So I think the beauty of having scholars from all different backgrounds come together with different viewpoints is what makes Knight-Hennessy what it is. And so that is what is being looked for in the application, like what do you bring in as you? So just be very authentic. I think the question that took me the longest was connect the dots, but then when I do review back at my application, it was very much very structured. I was like I grew up here. I did this. I did this because of this. I did this because of this. I did this of this. And as I read it, I'm like, oh, it makes sense. Yes, it was hard to piece everything together and spend some time doing that, but I did realize that the thing was I just shared who I was. When I read that, I was like, oh, I didn't create a story or anything. It was just who I am.
Sydney Hunt:
Just honest. Yeah.
Khushi Malde:
Yeah, and then the other thing I would like to say to a lot of fellow applicants from Africa in specific, many times, I know there is this notion of like, oh, I can't reach there. Why would I apply? Give it a shot. You never know, because I had the same feeling. I'm like, oh, Stanford-
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Khushi Malde:
That's not happening. Knight-Hennessy definitely not happening. But just giving it a shot because you never know.
Ashley Yeh:
I completely agree. I feel like a lot of people are stopped just by the thought alone of they don't think there's any point to it, but I agree. And I was also wondering if there's anything that comes to mind for you? What do you think is the thing that you were surprised by when you came to KH that you didn't expect, or maybe an expectation or a view of KH that you had that actually you came here and realized was not correct?
Khushi Malde:
Yeah. I think the one thing that I did, I guess an expectation that I had was like everyone is super accomplished, has done so many great things. Will I even fit in? Will I do my... And I think this goes back to my Berkeley story where in my first night with my roommates, and I was like am I going to experience the same thing? Am I going to be able to connect with people? And I think that's what the beauty of KH is, where, yes, everyone has done amazing things. Everyone cares about causes that they're working for, but they're also here to learn from one another. And there is really that spirit of like I don't know anything, and the reason I'm here in this community is because I want to learn from you. And everyone is given equal space to share how they feel, their experiences. And everyone's always a listening ear.
So I have never felt where any event or anything like, oh, only this person knows this, and this person is the expert in this. It's always been very collaborative conversations, very critical conversations as well. We talk about a lot of hard topics as well, but everyone's viewpoints are fully respected. And having been in industry before and being on panels where you're shut down or it becomes chaotic, et cetera, there was that fear that I had, like, oh, just so many accomplished people in the same room. How are we going to respect one another? How are we going to listen to one another and learn from one another? But just being at Denning at any point, I think you just end up in a conversation, and everyone's supporting one another, which was really nice experience.
Sydney Hunt:
Absolutely. I totally agree. And I think, like you mentioned about Storytelling, that is a great way to start breaking the ice with people. I know something that also broke the ice, at least in my Immersion Weekend, was people asking each other what their improbable facts were. And I guess on the topic of improbable facts-
Ashley Yeh:
Great segue.
Khushi Malde:
Oh my gosh.
Sydney Hunt:
If you have any you want to share, you don't have to, but, yeah, I'm reading yours right now, and some of them I think are so cool. So it's up to you, of course. We can always cut this out if you don't want to, but if there are any two maybe that you would like to share?
Khushi Malde:
Is there one that stands out to you, that I can share more on?
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so I really love any type of artwork in general. And it's your first fact, which says, "I have been a professional bridal henna artist for more than 40 clients over the past nine years," which when I read that, I was like, oh my gosh-
Ashley Yeh:
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Sydney Hunt:
That's the coolest thing ever. So cool. Yeah, I'm biased, but-
Ashley Yeh:
That was so cool.
Sydney Hunt:
If you want to talk more about that.
Ashley Yeh:
How did you get into that?
Sydney Hunt:
That's so sick. Yeah.
Khushi Malde:
Yeah. So I grew up in the Indian community. My parents are from India. And the Indian community, it is big, but not that big in Kenya. And a lot of weddings and festivities, there would be henna happening. And I just would love to get it done. And in the process, I think it was probably when I was six or seven years old, because my mom knew that I loved to get it done, she would bring henna cones home, and I would just be playing around with it.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
So that was kind of my introduction of holding a cone, et cetera. And then I think at the age of about 12, 13, I started being able to just learn designs from videos, et cetera. And then because my mom saw that I was very interested in this, then I took professional classes to learn the more advanced-
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
Shapes, et cetera. And through taking those classes with my teacher, I would go for some of the clients that she had, some of the events that she had, and I would do some of the work. And that kind of led me to being like, oh, I can create my own designs as well, and I can take up clients as well. So I think I was in probably grade nine or grade 10 when I started-
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
Taking up my own clients.
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
Art is always just like, for me, it's the time that I'm in my flow state.
Sydney Hunt:
Is it almost like therapeutic in a way for you?
Khushi Malde:
Very therapeutic. So it's a great way for me to... I always used to draw and paint and then got into henna, and just the whole process of designing and applying it, just the intricacy of it-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
Et cetera, has been just a great way for me to de-stress and-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
Also enjoy the arts. It did turn into a bit of a professional venture for a bit. I still do it here and there, but I think for me, it's just a fun thing that I do.
Sydney Hunt:
That's awesome.
Ashley Yeh:
That's so cool. How long does it take for each client? I'm sure the designs must be super intricate.
Khushi Malde:
I think it depends. So for a bride, it's anywhere from... Because you would do both the hands front and back and the feet, it's anywhere from six to 10 hours straight.
Sydney Hunt:
Wow. Wow.
Khushi Malde:
That takes long.
Ashley Yeh:
With breaks, I hope.
Khushi Malde:
You take a few-
Sydney Hunt:
Okay.
Khushi Malde:
Yeah, you take a few breaks-
Ashley Yeh:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
In between, like a quick snack break and-
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
Stuff, but-
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
Those take long. But otherwise, if it's just a simple design, it could also be done in 10 minutes. So it really depends on the intricacy of it.
Sydney Hunt:
Wow. That's so cool. Oh my gosh.
Ashley Yeh:
The dedication.
Sydney Hunt:
You're so talented. You're so talented.
Okay. Well, I have a bias of one more fact I mentioned, but if Ashley, I don't know if you have... You're welcome to pick.
Ashley Yeh:
Okay, you just missed the qualifying for the Kenya national swimming team by 0.1 milliseconds.
Sydney Hunt:
Twice. Twice.
Khushi Malde:
So this was in grade eight or nine. So I was swimming competitively, and this was now the time to qualify for the-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
Travel team for Kenya, et cetera, and the first year, so the strokes that I was swimming was breaststroke and freestyle. Breaststroke, I was just a bit slower-
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Khushi Malde:
So I knew that I'm not going to qualify for that, but freestyle the first year, missed it by that 0.1 millisecond.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
And then the second year I was like, okay, let's give it another shot. Again, did not make it by again-
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
By 0.1 millisecond.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Khushi Malde:
And so then at that point, I continued to swim and compete within the country, but then with just high school work, et cetera, that also slowed down. I continued to swim recreationally, but yeah, that was something that that...
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, I love this fact because I think there's so many different ways you can go about the improbable fact section. And I think, as I'm sure the listeners, I can hear from this episode, you're such a humble person. And I think this is such a unique way of bragging, but not bragging in a way. You're bragging in a way that's saying you're an amazing swimmer, but you also have that humility of recognizing that maybe zooming out. At least when I was applying to KH and I was reading scholar profiles, I was like, oh my gosh, these people are literally like Forbes 30 under 30. Everyone has a nonprofit. Everyone has all these things. At the time I was 21. I was like I literally have not even graduated college, and I'm competing for this stuff. And I think sometimes we can put people on a pedestal of feeling like they're only successful. And I really, really love that you were able to show that, yes, you are successful in so many ways, but this one fact also shows that you don't necessarily achieve everything.
And that's so true for every single person in the world, and especially Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We all have our own forms of just missing the mark, and it can be frustrating. I know I've experienced it in many different areas. And the fact that you highlighted this to me just makes me really happy, because I think more listeners need to hear and see that we're just people. We're not perfect in any way at all.
Khushi Malde:
No one's perfect. Yeah, no one's perfect. And I think, I guess also the beauty of Knight-Hennessy is we have a Slack chat where we are sharing our rejections and failures-
Sydney Hunt:
Just about failures.
Khushi Malde:
And we're celebrating that because there is equal celebration for you, I think I strongly believe you just putting the effort and trying than actually achieving something. So definitely apply because you never know.
Sydney Hunt:
Exactly.
Khushi Malde:
And even if it doesn't work out, just the whole process of reflecting-
Sydney Hunt:
Right. I agree.
Khushi Malde:
Through the application just changes a lot for someone. So, yeah, I think it is important to highlight that none of us are perfect.
Sydney Hunt:
No. Absolutely not. Yeah.
Ashley Yeh:
When in doubt, just apply, I think. That's always been my philosophy, just applying to things. I think, one, it also helps me reflect a lot and also have an essay ready for the next thing I apply for. And I think it's always helpful, whatever ends up happening, just to try.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah. And just finally, not to harp on this so long, for the listeners, KH was exactly that for me. There actually was another application that I really, really wanted, and I just missed the mark. I was a finalist, and I didn't get it, and it was between two people at the very end. And I remember being so upset. And then, like Ashley mentioned, I was like, well, I have another essay that I already wrote that I can use for KH. And I never imagined that that would be where it took me, but I'm so happy that I ended up here. I think in hindsight, this is such a better fit for me. It worked out for the best. And, yeah, just as you both said, just try. You never know what's going to happen. And don't necessarily tie your self-worth to that because there are other ways to tie in whatever experience that is to other parts of life. Just like with you, with swimming, you still swim recreationally. It doesn't have to be a one and done.
Khushi Malde:
Exactly.
Sydney Hunt:
You can do so many different things. So, sorry, I got on my high horse, but I just think you're so amazing and you're so awesome. And the stuff that you choose to share is stuff that I very much agree with and I don't think is talked about enough. So I just appreciate, yeah, you and your vulnerability and your presence. And I think it's very clear that you're a role model for a lot of students. And I'm sure many strangers who listen to this episode will feel the same way.
Khushi Malde:
Thank you. And, yeah, whatever happens happens for a reason. So-
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, I agree.
Khushi Malde:
Getting into that other program-
Sydney Hunt:
Always works out for the best.
Khushi Malde:
We wouldn't have met.
Sydney Hunt:
Exactly.
Ashley Yeh:
Exactly. It's true.
Sydney Hunt:
Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Khushi and Ashley, for hanging with us today and chatting. It was really, really wonderful to learn more about you and your story. I appreciate all the things you're doing to empower the next generation, no matter where they come from. So, yeah, thank you for your time, and looking forward to more chats in Denning.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Imagine A World, where we hear from inspiring members of the KHS community who are making significant contributions in their respective fields, challenging the status quo, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible as they imagine the world they want to see.
Willie Thompson:
This podcast is sponsored by Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, a multidisciplinary, multicultural graduate fellowship program providing scholars with financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while helping equip them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders who address complex challenges facing the world. Follow us on social media at knighthennessy, and visit our website at kh.stanford.edu to learn more about the program and our community.
