Dec 19 2025 to Dec 19 2025 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

A society fails not when it lacks talent, but when talent has nowhere to go.

In this lecture, Professor Anirudh Krishna invites us to reimagine opportunity not as luck or merit, but as something societies deliberately construct. Drawing on over a decade of global research across countries and contexts, this lecture asks an uncomfortable question: how much potential are we wasting when millions operate far below what they’re truly capable of?

Through stories of nations that have successfully built strong pathways to success, we’ll explore the architecture of progress: the schools, networks, policies, and cultural shifts that turn capacity into achievement. This isn’t your average abstract policy talk but rather a conversation to understand the structures that launch young people toward their dreams or leave them stranded.

Whether you’re an educator, policymaker, parent, or simply someone who cares about untapped potential, this conversation will reshape how you think about development and the futures we’re building together!

This lecture is a part of Azim Premji University’s Public Lecture Series.

Presented by:

Speaker

Anirudh Krishna
Edgar T Thompson Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, Duke University
Anirudh Krishna is the Edgar T. Thompson Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University, where he has taught for 25 years. Before entering academia, he spent 14 years in the Indian Administrative Service leading rural and urban development programmes across India. His research on poverty, inequality, and social mobility spans three decades and three continents: Asia, Africa, and the United States. Krishna has authored nine books, including One Illness Away and The Broken Ladder, which won the A.K. Coomaraswamy Award. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University and has received an Honorary Doctorate from Uppsala University (2011), the Olaf Palme Visiting Professorship (2007), and the Dudley Seers Memorial Prize twice (2005, 2013). He has advised the World Bank, the United Nations, and governments worldwide on building pathways out of poverty.