Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT Professional Education, housed under the School of Engineering, is the arm of MIT that provides access to MIT knowledge and expertise to thousands of professionals around the world via education programs designed for them.
Bhaskar Pant, executive director of MIT Professional Education, says he didn’t consciously set out to bring more diversity to the program when he stepped into his role in 2008. But, as he puts it, a commitment to diversity and multiculturalism is in his “DNA.”
Pant was born of Indian heritage in Zambia; he has lived on four continents, and is fluent in English, Hindi, and Gujarati, with a working knowledge of French. During several decades in the private sector, he worked as an executive on four continents with vastly different cultural contexts, and has seen multiple, vivid examples of how a commitment to inclusion and a respect for cultural differences can have a positive impact on the work of both individuals and institutions.