ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2025
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. This year, 60,000+ young leaders applied to join the Class of 2025 on 7,000+ campuses across 170 nations. 290+ campuses worldwide (less than 5%) were selected to host the 4,500+ Millennium Fellows.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT HARSH VARDHAN GUPTA, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2025.
Netaji Subhas University of Technology | New Delhi, India | Advancing SDG 10, SDG 5 & UNAI 3
" I believe health policy should be based on the real situations people face in their daily lives. The Millennium Fellowship will help me learn how to use data and community feedback together, so I can create solutions that work in practice. I'm looking forward to working with other fellows who also want to turn good ideas into lasting change in line with the UNAI principles and SDGs. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Project Janani Setu
Project addresses the critical maternal health inequities in tribal Jharkhand, India, where high neonatal mortality is directly linked to low rates of institutional delivery and antenatal care(ANC). The project first conducted an econometric analysis of NFHS-5 data, quantifying that a 1% increase in ANC coverage correlates with a 2.16% reduction in neonatal mortality.
Next, the project identified the primary barriers to care, which are not just structural but deeply cultural: a lack of trust in clinics, language barriers (Santhali/Ho), and a community reliance on Traditional Birth Attendants (Dais). The project's core output is the "Hybrid Care Model," a data-driven, culturally-aware policy framework designed to partner with and train these trusted Dais as community health champions.
These findings were shared with a local NGO, which has expressed a strong willingness to collaborate on piloting the model, demonstrating its real-world viability.
About the Millennium Fellow
Harsh Vardhan Gupta is a junior Mechanical Engineering student at Netaji Subhas University of Technology, Delhi, focused on improving health policy for underserved communities through practical, data-informed strategies. Originally from Varanasi, his commitment began after losing his grandmother to a preventable diagnostic delay. Partnering with the Utthan Foundation’s Mobile Medical Units, Harsh has engaged in screenings, TB-detection drives, and community health awareness initiatives. Through his Millennium Fellowship project, he analyzes barriers to Ayushman Bharat enrollment and pilots targeted interventions, aiming to pursue a public policy career aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
