ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2021
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In 2021, over 25,000 young leaders on 2,000+ campuses across 153 nations applied to join the Class of 2021. 136 campuses worldwide (just 6%) were selected to host the 2,000+ Millennium Fellows. The Class of 2021 is bold, innovative, and inclusive.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT GABRIELA HERNANDEZ, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2021.
Bentley University | Massachusetts, United States | Advancing SDG 12 & UNAI 9
" I'm excited to work with like-minded team members as Millennium Fellows, to develop a project that will have a tangible, large-scale impact on our community. I look forward to further developing my strategic and leadership skills as a Millennium Fellow, as I believe this growth will fuel the positive impact my future projects will have. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Project Spoiled
The goal of the SPOILED project is to accelerate residential compostable waste collection, specifically in our university, with the hope that finding and introducing a composting system that works will encourage the larger Waltham and Boston community to amp up their composting efforts as well. At Bentley University, we began by conducting thorough research of the systems in place for composting, as well as by talking to neighboring universities such as Brandeis that had proved successful in composting in the past. We encountered two major obstacles: lack of funding and the issue of individuals throwing trash in composting bins. To tackle the second issue, we implemented an awareness campaign that included teaching people about the significance of composting, as well as explaining why a single piece of trash thrown into a composting bin made the whole composting bin un-usable and hence negatively affected the entire composting system, many times even making the cycle unsustainable.
About the Millennium Fellow
Gabriela Hernandez is a Computer Information Systems & Marketing student at Bentley University in Boston. She grew up in Peru and has always been passionate about social justice issues such as access to education, gender equality, and sustainability efforts. Her passion for these issues has been expressed by participating and leading different projects, from volunteering at NGOs such as EducationUSA and The Representation Project, where she co-hosted webinars, podcasts, and provided assistance to those who needed it, all the way to leading the Diversity & Inclusion Committee at Bentley’s Investment Group, the largest club on-campus comprised of 400+ students. Most recently, she also worked with Social Impact Scholars to build a strategy that would help host the Marketplace of the Future event, bringing together hundreds of socially-driven brands and startups with new ideas and technology to help save the planet from global warming. Gabriela is also working on growing her own startup, Stratevec Consulting, alongside her co-founders, to provide opportunities in business and technology to students from underrepresented communities. She’s looking forward to using her skills and passion to develop the United Nations' Sustainable Goals.
