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 KOMAL KAUSHIK, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2021.
University of Delhi | New Delhi, India | Advancing SDG 12 & UNAI 9
" I want to see change and even though I believe that every contribution, however small, matters, I also feel that to bring bigger changes, presence of a platform is necessary and I believe that this fellowship is the platform that I have been looking for. I have so much to offer and there is so much that I would like to do and so much that needs to be done and all I want is to make that happen and work towards something I believe in, something that can help me advance my skills and strengthen my values so that I can contribute as a conscious citizen on the world. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Self-Regulating Model to Motivate Pro-Environment Consumer Trends
Our model proposes to mandate companies to effectively highlight the carbon footprint of the product, within the packaging of the product. The model works on behavioural strategies and serves a two-fold action plan, first, it gives the consumer a choice between a higher sustainable product versus a lower sustainable product and secondly because of the competitive markets for these goods, companies are likely to increase the ratio of eco-friendly to harmful products produced, without price changes. The regulatory mechanism to ensure the first half of the plan is driven on using consumer guilt to enforce pro-environmental choices (inducing guilt when they don’t make a pro-environmental choice), gratifying these choices and recognising individual contributions of the consumers through display tags on the product and enabling a sense of internal locus of control that makes the consumer feel responsible for their choice in real-time. The idea is to promote the sustainable product as the default choice and not merely peripheral awareness campaigns through indirect platforms. The second half shall function as a nudging policy for producers to reduce carbon footprints, for better marketability of the products within the competitive market, as consumers make pro-environmental choices and demand for sustainable goods increases.
About the Millennium Fellow
Komal Kaushik is a psychology student, pursuing her honors from the University of Delhi, India. She has been actively involved with various projects across themes such as psychology, environment, women rights, social work, and mental health and has been a vocal advocate for the same. She is an avid writer, researcher, editor, and speaker, is also passionate about debating and poetry and believes in using these skills and platforms to voice out her opinions in a systematic manner. She has been serving in various leadership positions across organizations working towards regional as well as global social impact, namely Girl Up - campaign under the United Nations Foundation, Dead River Project - a non-profit organization working towards preserving the environment and sustainability where she has her own podcast as well, Women Development Cell, Daulat Ram College, co-founder at Safe Haven - a student-led initiative to enable a safe space for the youth of today. She highly regards values of humility, equality and empathy and when it comes to ideation and taking up new projects, she seldom hesitates. She believes that many problems that seem minor on the face of it go unnoticed and not addressing them at the right time is what leads to catastrophic consequences. She wants to use every skill, every idea and every resource she has to ensure change and contribute actively towards it.
