A Dumagueteña has been appointed senior director this month at the Legatum Center for Development & Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Myrish Cadapan-Antonio, former Dumaguete City Councilor and faculty at Silliman University, is starting a career at MIT as head for Fellowships and Global Initiatives. She will also be a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Antonio said MIT’s Center for Development & Entrepreneurship aims to “build pathways for principled entrepreneurial leaders to transform systems and improve lives in emerging/ developing economies worldwide through on the ground programs”.
For the past six years when they left Dumaguete until September this year, Antonio was director for Fellowship & Leadership Development at the Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University, about four kilometers away also in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She said she will concurrently serve in that capacity as consultant to help manage a smooth transition, until the end of the year.
“I am feeling such a deep sense of gratitude for senior leaders who took a chance on me and opened an unbelievable wealth of possibilities; colleagues who nurtured me, challenged me, mentored me, extended a hand in friendship and colleagiality, and allowed me to innovate and make mistakes; students who embraced me with warmth and a deep sense of community, and who never ceased to inspire me with their curiosity and commitment to making a difference in the world,” Antonio said of her stint at Harvard. “It is time to go and grow,” she said.
She also thanked family and friends, including the tight-knit Filipino community in Boston, “who stood by me and my family during such a difficult transition in our lives, and believed in us, prayed for us, supported us”.
Antonio said she will miss Harvard as a “space for learning and growth, a vibrant and diverse community, and the warmth of familiarity, but at MIT where I am headed, another exciting adventure awaits”.
She said her move to MIT takes her “closer to my sense of purpose for a wider and deeper global impact in my work, while remaining connected to the communities and networks I have helped build, and continue to be part of”.
“The tools and learnings I will get at MIT on entrepreneurship and design thinking will be invaluable to whatever bigger role I might have in the future,” Antonio said. “For now, we are building skills and networks that can lead us closer to our dreams.”
